Several biblical writers—including the author of Hebrews—tell us that the Christian life is like a race. The starting line is our conversion. The finish line is death. As we run this race, we are to look ahead to the finish line—the victory and inheritance that are ours in Jesus Christ. Yet with the finish line before our eyes, we are warned by the author of Hebrews not to let our progress be hindered by carelessness or the rejection of godly discipline.

Just as athletes train hard, prepare in advance for the big race, and struggle not to quit when their lungs feel like they are about to explode, believers must endure over the course of the Christian life. The Christian life will be tough—like a mara­thon. It will not be easy, since it entails an intense struggle with sin. We will, at times, desire to give up and quit. We know that the Christian life will require work, diligence, and persistence. There are no shortcuts. Yet through faith in Jesus and through the power of the Holy Spirit, God gives us every resource we need to complete the race and win the prize. This is what the discipline of God is intended to teach us. We neglect this to our peril.

You can read the essay here: The Danger of Neglect and the Hope of Victory

I once ascended the public lectern in Bern, Switzerland (as did Lenin back in 1915) and preached to the massive crowd (my wife and six close friends). As I did then, I do once again. Here’s a rant on my “rules for politics”

My 25 “Rules for Politics”

1). If you pay no federal income tax, you have no right to demand that the top 2% of earners (i.e., the “billionaires”) pay more in federal taxes.

2). If you are not registered to vote, you forfeit any right to complain or pontificate about anything which goes on in local or national politics.

3). If you choose not to vote in any given election, then please remain silent about politics and those elected until the next election rolls around (if you do vote).

4). Every registered voter should take at least one course, or read at least one book on the US Constitution–its history, and/or the debates surrounding its composition and ratification. Listening to partisan tribal podcasts, political prognosticators, or lapping up partisan social media does not count.

5). Do not vote for any political candidate until you have actually read their political (or professional) resume, carefully reviewed their legislative/administrative accomplishments, and considered any scandals and controversies they have generated or of which they have been a part.

6). Those who run “on their past record” and have not done anything they promised to do, or those who promise “to fix things on day one” which lies beyond the capacity of the office they are seeking, will not get my vote.

7). If you choose a candidate merely because they are telegenic, a polished speaker, witty, or capable of a good sound bite or AI video, you are part of the problem.

8). Our current political “live candidate debates” have more in common with the Westminster Kennel Club’s annual dog show, than they do with real “debate.”

9). If any politician wants to reach deeper into my wallet, they better have a very good reason and an established reputation for finding government fraud and waste and cutting government spending.

10). If any political candidate thinks he or she can manage my life and my family better than I can, they will never get my vote.

11). Cutting the rate of increase in spending is not a budget cut!

12). Do not robo-call me or send me mailers telling me that your opponent is a terrible human being.

13). Professing Christians of the left and the right are often embarrassingly ill-informed (dare I say “clueless”) about the history and consequences of the political ideologies they espouse.

14). Instead of serving as the “world’s greatest deliberative body” the US Senate has become the epitome of partisan politics. If these people spent half of their time back in the legislatures of their home states (as the founding fathers intended), they would do far less damage to the country. Repeal the seventeenth amendment! Send them home for six months every year—the vacation from the nation’s capital will benefit them and us.

(15). Neither the US Senate nor the White House are a care home or rehab facility for the non compos mentis. Those too old and frail to serve need to retire. Their staffs, backers, and families who encourage them to stay in office are committing elder abuse.

(16). We already have term limits—elections. Vote people out what do not do their jobs or who betray the trust of their constituents.

(17). The better presidents in our history have had the rare ability to do what was best for the nation without any sacrifice of their personal governing principles. At the same time, they were usually willing, when necessary, to depart from their political party’s “sacred” platform.

18). As defined constitutionally, the office of the Presidency of the United States is that of holding “executive power” and is therefore to lead all Americans–not just those of their own political party. Worth considering before voting.

19). I don’t want to hear (although I know I will) another clueless celebrity or politician blame mass shootings and acts of terrorism solely upon the 2nd Amendment (yes, these events are tragic and occur for complicated reasons), especially when these same people often utilize hired (and armed) security to protect them from their adoring fans or critics.

20). There is something terribly wrong with a society which humanizes pets and dehumanizes the unborn human fetus. I vote pro-life.

21). You may think your pet has rights and is a “member” of your family, but if your dog bites me, I’m suing you, not your dog, and I’ll win.

22). There are far more important things in life than sexual gratification or living in a cannabis fog. Yet this society seems incapable of figuring this out. Shouldn’t personal freedom have some limits?

23). Why is it that many reasonably paid professionals run for office, but leave that office as gazillionaires? Something is seriously wrong somewhere.

24). Vote for candidates who will work to balance the budget of your state as well as the federal government. We are not only facing a tsunami of mounting debt, we are running up a bill our children and grandchildren will be saddled with. There’s no way they will live as well as my generation has. Vote accordingly.

25). I will not vote for any California politician who thinks a 120 billion dollar high-speed rail system which connects Bakersfield with Merced is somehow an essential public works project.

Christians and Non-Christians In Contrast

The apostle John teaches by repetition. Throughout his first epistle, repeatedly, John has spoken of the way in which we can tell the differences between those who believe that Jesus is God manifest in the flesh and those who do not. John has told us that Christians do not foolishly think that we are without sin, while those who have left the faith do mistakenly think they are without sin. Christians will strive to obey God’s commandments, while those taken in by false teachers are indifferent to the commandments of God. Christians will love their brothers and sisters in Christ, while those outside the church are not interested in demonstrating such love. Christians will strive to avoid worldliness (which is thinking and acting like a non-Christian), while those who have imbibed from the spirit of antichrist treat those who are faithful to the gospel just as Cain treated Abel. And Christians will love the truth, and willingly defend the doctrine that Jesus is God manifest in human flesh in the face of the many antichrists who will inevitably arise and seek to undermine the truth of our Lord’s incarnation.

In the fifth chapter of 1 John, the apostle summarizes these familiar themes one final time, before concluding his epistle by returning to his testimony by which we know that Jesus is God manifest in the flesh. In the concluding chapter of 1 John, the apostle will once again summarize his main points, before concluding this letter with a powerful assertion of the truth of the gospel, before asking that question which all of us must ask and answer at some point in our Christian lives–“how do we know that we know?” How do we know that Christianity is true? How do we know that our doctrine is correct? Why do we go to such great lengths and self-sacrifice and deny ourselves to live differently than those around us? Why do we drag our weary bones out of bed each Sunday to attend worship, listen to yet another sermon, and receive a tiny piece of bread and receive a very small cup of wine? How do we know that we know?

This Is How We Know

The answer to these questions is to be found in the nature of John’s own experience and life as an apostle. In chapter 20 of his gospel, John tells his reader that his purpose in composing that gospel is as follows. “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:30-31). John has composed his gospel precisely because he wants us to believe in Jesus Christ so that we will have eternal life. John is writing to convince us that Jesus is that one whom John (and the other apostles) claim that he is–God manifest in the flesh.

According to John, our Lord’s entire messianic ministry bears witness to his identity as the Son of God. This is evident in Jesus’s teaching, through the fact that he is that one promised throughout the Old Testament (fulfilled prophecy), and through his miracles–done in the presence of those who have means and motive to expose them if they claim these things were fake or nothing but magic. But the capstone of John’s case for Jesus is the fact that once crucified, God raised Jesus from the dead. And to all of this–that Jesus is God manifest in the flesh–John is witness.

Likewise, in 1 John 5:13, John states in the closing section of his epistle, “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.” Because Jesus was God manifest in the flesh, John’s gospel is true, and his purpose in writing these epistles is to compel his readers to trust in Jesus so that they might know what it means to possess eternal life. John wants nothing more than for people to believe the gospel and embrace his testimony about the identity of Jesus. But that being said, these epistles are not really evangelistic tracts, rather they are letters written by the apostle to expose and correct serious doctrinal error.

A Variation on the Theme

Before John reminds us that the entire Christian faith stands or falls with the truth of our Lord’s incarnation, in verses 1-5 of chapter five John re-states the need for Christians to obey the commandments of the Lord, love our brothers and sisters in Christ, and avoid the contamination of the world. As we have seen, it is absolutely essential that we understand why John speaks the way that he does and why he emphasizes these particular things. John’s opponents are a group of heretical false teachers who deny that Jesus is God in the flesh–the very heart of the Christian faith.

Because these heretics mistakenly assumed that they had risen above their own sinfulness, they have become completely indifferent to the commandments of God. While we know this teaching to be a form of neo-Gnosticism, John calls this denial of Christ’s true humanity and the corresponding antinomianism which springs from it, the spirit of antichrist. If Jesus wasn’t God manifest in the flesh, then how could Jesus suffer and die for our sins? Given what these false teachers believe about Jesus–that he was God who only appeared as a man–we shouldn’t be surprised by their indifference to how they live their lives.

This is a vital point for John, precisely because God is love. God’s love is revealed in a very particular way–the cross of Jesus Christ. When Jesus suffers and dies for our sins, Jesus reveals that the essence of God’s love for sinners is his own self-sacrifice. When Jesus offers up himself as a propitiatory sacrifice for our sins, we see God’s love for a lost and fallen world. Now, if Jesus were not a flesh and blood Savior, then his death is not the supreme manifestation of God’s love. Jesus would be nothing but a phantom, merely appearing in the form of a human. And how can the death of a phantom Jesus do anything to save us from our sins? How can the death of such a Jesus be the supreme example of the love of God, which John says is to be present in the churches because God himself is love? To deny that Jesus is God manifest in the flesh is to deny Christianity. It is to mock the cross of Christ.

The Love of God and the Gospel

But since God is love, since God has called us from death to life through the preaching of the gospel, since Jesus has died for us upon the cross as a propitiation for our sins, since Jesus presently intercedes for us before the Father, and since our Lord has given us the blessed Holy Spirit, then all those who are Christ’s will indeed manifest some degree of love toward those other folk for whom Christ has died and for whom he is presently interceding. John has made it perfectly clear that if we trust in Christ to save us from our sins, love for others will be present in our midst. And, says John, we can work backwards from the presence of love in our midst to its source–God, who is love.

The application which John makes at the end of chapter four is that love not only casts out fear, the cross of Christ reminds us that the love of God will sustain and deliver us from God’s wrath on the day of judgment. John’s point is if Christ has died for us–the supreme act of God’s love–then we can have confidence for the day of judgment because believers know that Jesus has already faced judgment day for us as he suffers and dies on the cross. This is why in the cross of Jesus Christ we see the love of God and can draw assurance from the fact that in Jesus’s death, God’s anger toward our sin has been turned aside.

Faith and Love. Again

This is all in the background as John begins to conclude his epistle. Having come this far in this epistle, we are already quite familiar with those points of contrast John has set forth between those who believe that Jesus is God manifest in the flesh and those who don’t. Here in the first five verses of chapter five, John will take them up yet again, only in summary form. Throughout these verses, John will speak of the noun “faith” and the verb “believe,” three more times he will mention love, and two more times he will speak of the need for Christians to obey God’s commands. By reemphasizing this in this way, John is able to show that all of these things flow out of a correct understanding of the person and work of Christ.[1] Doctrine precedes ethics.

In 5:1, John writes, “everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him.” Throughout this epistle John has been careful to demonstrate that those things which differentiate Christians from those who have been taken in by the proto-Gnostic docetic heresy, flow out of God’s prior actions in the lives of his people. As John put it in 1 John 4:10, “in this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” As noted previously, the indicatives (what we are in Christ) precede the imperatives (commands). In this case, John says, “everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ,” that is, everyone who believes that Jesus is God manifest in the flesh, has been born of God. To the English ear, this sounds like John is saying that everyone who believes in Jesus, as a result, is born again. If true, that completely undermines the Reformed notion that regeneration (being born from above) precedes faith.

Born of God

But the verb “has been born” is in the perfect tense, while the verb “to believe” is in the present tense. Ths simply means that the effects of a past act (“being born of God,” i.e., being regenerated) continue on into the present (believing). John is telling us that those who have been born of God live that out by believing (continuously) in Jesus. In other words, those who currently have faith do so, because they were, at one point, ‘born of God.”[2] As one writer puts it, “believing is the consequence, not the cause, of the new birth.”[3] Therefore, John is reminding us that all of those who have been made alive (born of God) through the preaching of the gospel, demonstrate that to be the case by believing. The cause is regeneration and the effect is continuing faith in Christ. This is the way Israel’s prophets often spoke of the coming messianic age–a time when God himself would create new life in people who were dead in sin, the most famous of these images being Ezekiel 37:1-14.

The second clause of this verse reminds us that faith is not the only effect of being born of God. “And everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him.” Those who love the Father are those who have been born of God and who have faith in Jesus. Since Jesus is the object of our faith (faith looks to Jesus, and trusts that Jesus’s death will save us from our sin), and since Jesus is the supreme illustration of what we mean when we say God is love, all those who trust in Christ, love the Father (who sent Jesus in the flesh, and who demonstrates his love for us in Jesus’s suffering upon the cross). But all those who love the Father, will love all those to whom the Father has given the new birth. This simply means that the effects of God’s work in making sinners alive in Christ is that they believe the gospel, and they will love their fellow believers.

Since God’s work produces very specific results, John’s point is aimed at those who do not believe that Jesus is the Christ (and who believe that he’s God merely appearing as a man). John’s concern is that those who love false teaching do not truly love their brothers and sisters in Christ. Those who have been given the new birth will produce that fruit for which God have given them life. For John there is a cause and effect relationship.

Assurance of God’s Love

Indeed, for John, these effects (faith and love) serve to assure Christians of their salvation. As John writes in verse 2, “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments.” We cannot love God without loving his people. We cannot love God’s people without loving God. John sees these things as inseparable. In fact, the presence of this love for God (however weak and frail it may be), and this love for our brothers and sisters in Christ (however tainted it may be by our own sin) is one of the means that we know that we are children of God.

Again, we need to be extremely careful not to attempt to quantify this, as is sometimes done by those in the Wesleyan holiness tradition, by arguing that a certain degree of love must be present for us to be assured of our salvation. John is not talking about the degree of love we must have to be assured of our salvation, but he is saying that the very presence of love for our brothers and sisters (in any degree) assures us of God’s love for us. Those who have been brought from death to life cannot help but love their brothers and sisters. The fact is only a Christian ever worries about whether or not they have loved their brothers and sisters enough.

And even a struggling Christian should conclude from this (although this can be a bit counter-intuitive) that God loves them, and therefore they should be certain of God’s favor toward them in Christ. Not one of those people about whom John is warning his reader, has ever once worried whether or not they’ve loved their brothers and sisters enough. Those who are dead in sin will have no true love for their brothers and sisters in Christ. Why do they not love? They remain dead in their sins. They have not been made alive by the word.

Not Burdensome

One more time, John reminds us that the indicative (our love for God and our brothers and sisters which enables us to know that we are God’s), precedes the imperative. In verse 3, John writes, “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.” Our love for God issues forth in our obedience to God. Love of God is not some sort of sentimental, sappy, emotional experience of the divine. Love for God manifests itself in concrete action–obedience to God’s commandments as set forth in the second table of the law (our duties toward our neighbor). While making the connection yet again between God’s love (the indicative) and our response (obedience to the commandments), John reminds us that the commandments are not burdensome. But in light of the fact the law was given to show us our sin, how can John now say that the law is not a burden?

At this point it is vital to consider the context. John has been writing about those things which flow out of the new birth. These include faith in Christ and love for neighbor. There is no way we can keep the law perfectly–as God demands. But John is assuming (I am sure) Jesus’s death as a propitiation for our sins, which means that his death upon the cross has already turned aside God’s wrath and anger toward us for all of those times that we have broken God’s commandments, including the times we have failed to love our brothers and sisters in Christ. Because of Christ’s death for us, the law no longer condemns us. Furthermore, Jesus kept all of the commandments, perfectly. So those who have faith in Christ are forgiven and reckoned as righteous.

It is in that context that John says the commandments are not burdensome. In fact, Jesus himself stated, “my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:30). This is true, and makes perfect sense, if you understand the distinction between the indicative and imperative (the difference between the law and the gospel). Miss this distinction (or confuse law and gospel), and the words, “his commandments are not burdensome,” are simply not true. If you get this wrong, the law is not only a burden, it will crush you into fine dust. As Christians, we must view our obligation to obey the law, through the lens of our Lord’s death and perfect righteousness.

Overcoming the World

Since John has been reminding his readers of those things which flow out of the new birth (faith, love, obedience), he now adds one more that he mentioned earlier, the need to avoid worldliness. As he states in verse 4, “For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world.” Those who are Christ’s ultimately prevail over the spirit of antichrist, because they have been born of God. The Apostle is not saying what some of our contemporaries will say, “if you overcome the world, as a result, you’ll be born of God.”[4] The new birth is a supernatural act of God. The world doesn’t like it, doesn’t understand it, and will oppose God’s work of redemption. But because regeneration is God’s supernatural work, God will prevail, and ultimately “the world” can do nothing to stay the hand of God.

As John hammers home this point, in the second part of verse 4 he gets more specific. “And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.” While the world (the non-Christian way of thinking and doing) will oppose the gospel, and seek to draw us away from Christ, John reminds us that the new birth issues in faith. And once having trusted in Jesus Christ–having seen in his cross the bloody and costly love of God for us, his people–the world cannot touch us. We may be persecuted, belittled, mocked, and even killed. Yet, in Christ, the victory is already won. The cross has already turned aside God’s wrath, and the empty tomb is the proof that we win in the end. This is the faith that overcomes the world. And so in verse 5, John can ask the rhetorical question, “Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” Those who are born of God do indeed believe John’s testimony that Jesus is the Son of God (God manifest in the flesh).

Having summarized those things which flow out of the new birth, John now makes his case that his gospel–and the proper response to that gospel, which is faith–depends upon the validity of his testimony as to that gospel’s truthfulness. In verse 1 of chapter 5, John referred to Jesus as “the Christ,” and in verse 5 as the “Son of God.” Now, in verses 6-12, John speaks a bit more specifically about Jesus’s messianic mission, and how we know that his proclamation about the Christ and the Son of God is true.

The Water and the Blood

In verse 6, John states, “This is he who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood.” These verses have perplexed many. Since John doesn’t explain any of his terms, it is likely that his readers were already familiar with them.[5] A number of commentators, including both Luther and Calvin, have argued that the references to water and the blood are references to the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper which confirm the gospel. While it is easy to take water as a reference for baptism, taking “blood” as a reference to the Lord’s Supper is much more of a stretch, making this interpretation unlikely. Another interpretation, held by Augustine and popular in the early church, is that the reference to water and blood is a reference to John 19:34-35, and John’s earlier report that when Jesus died on the cross, both blood and water flowed out of the spear wound in Jesus’s side. But John asserts that what is in view is one “who came” by water and blood, and while water and blood do indeed testify to Christ’s death, it is hard to understand how Jesus came by these two things, if the reference is to his suffering on the cross.[6]

Again, the historical context suggests a helpful solution. Most contemporary commentators understand water and blood as references as aspects of Christ’s messianic mission–the water referring to Christ’s baptism (the point at which he began his messianic mission), with the blood being a reference to our Lord’s death upon the cross (by which he accomplished our salvation). These two key points in the messianic mission of Jesus emphasize his true human nature, and would be especially powerful as a response to those who were denying our Lord’s humanity–like the proto-Gnostics then troubling the churches.

But there were other heretics in Ephesus as well–Cerinthus for example. Cerinthus taught that Jesus was a mere man upon whom the divine spirit descended at his baptism, and which departed from Jesus when he died on the cross. While Jesus came to earth from heaven as the God-man (John affirms the truth of Jesus’s incarnation and deity in response to Cerinthus), his baptism and death are proof of his true humanity (John’s response to the proto-Gnostics). What John is doing then in verse 6 is affirming both Christ’s deity and his humanity in the presence of heretics who were denying both.

The Spirit of Truth

In the latter part of verse 6, John adds, “And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.” As John tells us in his gospel (John 15:26; 16:13), the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. This means that it is the Holy Spirit who testifies to the truth of Jesus’s identity as both “the Christ” and as “Son of God.” The Holy Spirit is not going to bear witness that Jesus is not truly human, for that would mean that the Spirit is testifying to a lie. It is the Holy Spirit, therefore, who bears witness to us as to the truth of the gospel. In fact, as John goes on to say in verses 7-8, “For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree.”

As many of you know, there is a long history of debate over the original wording of these verses since many late manuscripts insert a reference to the Trinity, which is not found in the best and earliest manuscripts.[7] That’s a debate for another time. John’s point is that the three witnesses are in agreement. The Holy Spirit bears witness to the truthfulness of the messianic mission–which began when Jesus received the Holy Spirit at his baptism (water) and which came to its climax when Jesus suffered and died upon the cross (the blood). Thus the Spirit bears witness to the truth of the gospel. The Spirit is therefore not going to reveal or testify to something which contradicts John’s testimony about the identity of Jesus, as the neo-Gnostics were claiming.

Life in the Son

Now, says John in verse 9, “If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater, for this is the testimony of God that he has borne concerning his Son.” No doubt, we accept all kinds of things based upon human testimony and the report of eyewitnesses. How much more should we accept the testimony of God the Holy Spirit who bears witness to the truth of John’s testimony about Jesus. John saw Jesus. John heard Jesus. John touched Jesus. And the Holy Spirit bears witness to the truth of John’s testimony. This is why John can go on to say in verses 10-12, “Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has borne concerning his Son. And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.”

John is not making this up as he goes along. He is bearing witness to what he has seen and heard, which he knows first-hand. He is telling the truth. And he knows that anyone who trusts in Jesus has come to believe his testimony is true because the Holy Spirit has confirmed the truth of John’s preaching in the person’s heart. And since John’s preaching is true (and the Spirit bears witness to the truth of it), John can say without any reservation whatsoever that all those who reject his preaching as untrue, or who distort it, are making God out to be a liar. God did these things through the person of Jesus. John knows this to be true and proclaims this Jesus to us. And the blessed Holy Spirit bears witness to the truth of John’s testimony. To not believe John’s testimony then is to call God a liar. No small thing.

God has borne witness of his son Jesus, through the apostle John, and then confirmed the truth of John’s message in and through the work of the Holy Spirit, so that those who believe John’s testimony can be certain that they have eternal life. And this life has been given us by God through John’s gospel. Therefore, for John, it all comes down to this. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. It is as simple as that.

The Application Is Now Obvious

I must now ask you one of the most important questions you will ever be asked. You have heard John’s gospel. You have heard John’s testimony as to Jesus’s true identity–that he is both the Christ and the Son of God. You have heard John’s account of what Jesus came to do–die for our sins, turning aside God’s wrath from us.

The question then is this. Do you believe John’s testimony about Jesus to be true? If you do, then you know that you know, because John is telling us the truth, and the Holy Spirit confirms within us that John’s testimony is true. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

But if you don’t believe John’s testimony about Jesus to be true, then I plead with you to reconsider that testimony one more time. Please listen to John with an open mind and consider his testimony very carefully, because it is true. If you do not believe John’s testimony, you are calling God a liar, and you are calling into question both God’s desire and method to save you from your sins.

We may believe the testimony of men, but never forget that the testimony of God is greater, for this is the testimony of God that he has borne concerning his Son.

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[1] Stott, The Epistles of John, 174.

[2] Smalley, 1, 2, 3 John, 266-267.

[3] Stott, The Epistles of John, 175.

[4] Stott, The Epistles of John, 176.

[5] Stott, The Epistles of John, 179.

[6] Smalley, 1, 2, 3 John, 276.

[7] See Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (United Bible Society, 1971), 715, ff.

Having set forth the orthodox teaching, the Synod rejects the errors of those

Who teach that apart from a special revelation no one can have the assurance of future perseverance in this life.

For by this teaching the well-founded consolation of true believers in this life is taken away and the doubting of the Romanists is reintroduced into the church. Holy Scripture, however, in many places derives the assurance not from a special and extraordinary revelation but from the marks peculiar to God’s children and from God’s completely reliable promises. So especially the apostle Paul: “Nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:39); and John: “They who obey his commands remain in him and he in them. And this is how we know that he remains in us: by the Spirit he gave us” (1 John 3:24).

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One of the things which should occur to us as we work through these refutations is that many of the errors of the 17th century Dutch Arminians are the same as those taught by the Roman church. In the Sixth Session of the Council of Trent (1547), we read the following. “As if it were true, that he who is justified, either cannot sin any more, or if he do sin, that he ought to promise himself a certain repentance; for except by a special revelation, it cannot be known whom God hath chosen unto Himself.” The Canons correctly identify the error here—the assurance of one’s final salvation cannot be known—a view held in common by Romanists and the Arminians. A doctrine isn’t in error merely because Rome affirms it, but the fact is that this error points us in the direction of a common ancestor to both Romanism and the Arminians in one branch of the Christian theological family tree—semi-Pelagianism.

Semi-Pelagians hold (with Roman and Protestant variations) that God’s grace is generic (non-specific) and available to all through an act of the will. Once such grace is “appropriated” (activated), it is now possible for those dead in sin to trust in Christ and subsequently be born again (regenerate). Regeneration follows from the exercise of faith. So, if the semi-Pelagian logic holds, since we obtain grace through an act of our wills, so too, we can lose regeneration through an act of the will. The need for this “fifth head” of doctrine to be promulgated by the Synod of Dort, makes it clear that this is the Arminian view—grace, and salvation can be lost.

Both Rome and the Arminians, therefore, are predisposed to reject any line of argumentation which holds that true believers cannot fall away. They worry that teaching such a thing will make Christians lax and disposed not to do good works since there is no need (according to the Arminian mischaracterization of the Reformed teaching on this) to do so to maintain one’s standing before God. If true, how can it be said that at no future (and as yet unforeseen) point will a Christian cease to believe or commit a sin which severs them from Christ. Such an understanding led John Wesley (perhaps the most famous of all Arminians) that the proper motivation for the Christian life was fear of punishment and the hope of reward.

The Canons respond to this error by simply citing those biblical passages which teach the opposite thing: Romans 8:39, and 1 John 3:24. And as has been made clear throughout, none of this depends upon us—an act of will—but upon the present mediatorial work of Christ who will lose none of his sheep (John 10:28), and who will secure the salvation of all those given hm by the Father (John 17:12).

Episode Synopsis:

In Romans 1:18–32, Paul exposed the unrighteousness of the Gentiles. They have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, suppress the truth in unrighteousness, and engage in all sorts of godless behavior. Then, in Romans 2:1–3:8, Paul turns the spotlight of the law upon the Jews, exposing the troubling fact that they are no better off than the Gentiles. While correct in recognizing the truth of Paul’s condemnation of the Gentiles, the Jews were doing many of the same things for which they self-righteously judged the Gentiles. If they think God will overlook their own lawbreaking and hypocrisy, they are sadly mistaken.

Paul has set out the blessing-curse principle established at creation, when Adam and Eve were created as divine image-bearers. The law was written upon their hearts: “Do this and you shall live; break this command and you will die.” After God gave the Ten Commandments to Israel at Mount Sinai through the mediation of Moses, the commandments given to Adam and Eve as representatives of the human race were codified and published to Israel in the two tables of the law.

This blessing-curse principle remains in place, as Paul reiterates several times in chapter 2. God will give to each according to what they have done, promising blessings for obedience and threatening curses for disobedience. The Jews mistakenly assumed that the mere possession of the law and undergoing circumcision would protect them from God’s judgment. But their failure to keep the commandments, along with their error in understanding the essence of circumcision as a matter of cutting the flesh rather than a matter of the heart, renders them guilty before God.

But Paul is not done. Far from it. In Romans 3:9–20, Paul turns up the wattage, shining a very bright floodlight on both Jew and Gentile. Has anyone from either group ever kept the commandments of God? The verdict? No, not one. Is anyone (Jew or Gentile) righteous before God? No, not one. Is there anyone who truly seeks God and desires to obey his will? No, not one. In fact, all have turned aside. When it comes to the blessing-curse principle, how many have done good and earned the promised blessing? Not even one.

In verses 9–20 of Romans, Paul will open up the Old Testament to expose the fact that every person and every aspect of human nature has been tainted and corrupted by sin. The bad news is really bad. When Paul is finished with his indictment, not a single member of Adam’s race (Jew or Gentile) can claim the promised blessing. Rather, we all face the covenant curses because of our disobedience.

Show Notes:

This was a first. It was hotter than blazes with a Santa Ana wind howling outside. I was able to clean-up the audio, as best I could.

The good thing about the wind was this is the first time not a single airplane, helicopter, dog barking, crow cawing, or any other noise maker interrupted the recording session, or required post-recording editing. Just loud wind . . .

I am pleased to announce that I have a substantial book and an academic essay forthcoming, Lord willing. Both are under contract and should reach publication by the end of 2027 or early 2028. I am very excited about these projects and I’ll tell you more about them later (when I can)

Recommended Resources:

Select Resources for the Study of Romans

R. C. Sproul: None Righteous

Sinclair Ferguson: None Is Righteous Keller, No One Seeks God

Martin Lloyd-Jones (sermon): There Is None Righteous

Music:

(Shutterstock): Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op 92m, second movement, Allegret

It is often hard to know what to say or what to do when someone you know experiences sickness, suffers a loss, or faces death. Thankfully, our fathers in the faith have thought long and hard about what to say and how to console others when we find ourselves needing to visit the sick, comfort someone close to us, or offer an answer to that difficult question that often arises during times of trial: “Why did this happen to me?”

An old document provides much help in this regard, and I encourage you to take a look at it. Entitled A Brief Instruction in the True Faith and in the Way of Salvation, to Die Willingly, it was written by Cornelis van Hille in Norwich, England, in 1571. Although it was never formally incorporated into the liturgies of the Reformed churches, it has been reprinted many times in published liturgies and prayer books.

Among the topics addressed are the reasons for suffering (the Fall, human sin, and the limits of human life); God’s gracious salvation of sinful people, with a focus on Christ as our Redeemer, refuge, and giver of eternal life; the blessings of salvation (justification and Christ’s intercessory prayer on our behalf); the heavenly glory that lies ahead; the good fight of faith (good works springing from faith); the sure and certain hope of the resurrection; and our deliverance at the final judgment.

People don’t like to talk about death or deal with the realities of suffering. But Christians need not fear sickness or death, as awful as these can be, because God promises to sustain us through these trials and draw close to us when he calls us to suffer.

This little tract is a true gem of pastoral comfort. You can read it, or portions of it, to the sick when you visit them. You can send excerpts to friends and family when needed, since it is available online. Most important of all, you ought to read it before you or anyone else you know faces the reality that, barring the return of Jesus Christ, sickness and death will come. We serve a gracious and merciful God, but we live in a fallen world as vapors that come and go.

Not to be morose, but after many years of pastoral ministry, I am more convinced than ever that a pastor’s real job description is to assure God’s people of God’s favor toward them in Christ and to prepare them to die in Christ. Our tools are preaching the Word and administering the sacraments for the comfort of God’s people and the glory of Christ.

A Brief Instruction in the True Faith and in the Way of Salvation, to Die Willingly, places these tools at everyone’s disposal.

An excerpt from “Doers of the Law,” Part Two of a Deep Dive into Romans 2:1-16, from The Blessed Hope Podcast Season Five Series on the Book of Romans

Paul has stated in Romans 1:18–32 that Gentiles stand condemned because they know God through what has been made. But because of sin, they culpably exchange the truth of God for a lie—the source of all false religion. As a result, God gives them over to the consequences of their sin, depicted by Paul as a downward spiral into ever deeper depths of depravity. In Romans 2:1–16, Paul turns his focus to the Jews, who self-righteously judge the conduct of the Gentiles while doing the very same things they accuse the Gentiles of doing. This leads Paul to affirm one of the main principles of biblical theology—the “works principle.” God promises blessings to those who obey him, while he threatens curses upon those who disobey him. Since all have disobeyed, neither Jew nor Gentile can stand before God on judgment day and claim a righteous standing. They will not be justified. If God gives them what they deserve, they will perish.

Paul also speaks here of the fact that the law of God is written upon all human hearts—both Jew and Gentile. At Mount Sinai, those unwritten but universal commandments were written on two stone tablets and revealed to Israel, then codified and published in a distinctly covenantal context. This context demonstrates God’s will for his people through the Ten Commandments. These commandments are holy, righteous, and good (Romans 7:12). Those who keep these commandments (i.e., “doers”) will be justified. But the inability of the Jews to keep these commandments, along with the inability of the Gentiles to keep the unwritten version of the law inscribed upon their hearts, prepares the way for the coming of Israel’s Messiah—the incarnate Creator-Redeemer—who alone will keep God’s commands and then offer himself as a sacrifice for the sins of those who cannot.

This is why Paul speaks of God’s kindness as leading us to repentance—including repentance for all those times we have self-righteously looked down on others. Not one of us has done good and avoided evil. None of us has earned a righteous standing or eternal life. We all deserve God’s judgment. Who are we to condemn others? God hates self-righteousness, whether it is found among Jews who looked down on the Gentiles while doing the very same things themselves or among Christians who look down their noses at “bad people,” all the while forgetting that it was the same patience and kindness of God that he now shows to these sinners that once led us to repentance. Self-righteousness in all its forms is sin, and we must repent of it.

The depth of God’s kindness becomes clear when we realize that God sent Jesus to fulfill the terms of the covenant of works and to obey his law perfectly. Make no mistake about it: we are saved by good works—just not ours. The key question is, “Whose works, then?” Jesus Christ performed sufficient good works to earn eternal life. He did not sin. On the cross, Jesus received the curse for sin that was due to us because the guilt of our sins was imputed to him, as we will see in Romans 3:21–31. Whenever the gospel is preached, his righteousness—the righteousness from God now revealed—creates faith and gives eternal life. If we are “in Christ,” we need never fear the coming day of judgment. Jesus has suffered and died for our sins. He has taken away the wrath of God.

The good news of the gospel is that, through faith in Jesus, God reckons us as obedient to his commandments, as if we had personally obeyed every commandment at every moment of our lives. This is why Paul calls the gospel “good news” and why the gospel is the power of God for the salvation of all who believe! In Romans 2:4, the apostle adds that it is God’s kindness that leads us to trust the Savior and repent of our sins. And because he is kind, loving, and gracious, what he demands of us under the law, he freely gives us in the gospel.

About the Book:

Remembering the Reformed Confession: Essays on Theology, Piety, and Practice Honoring R. Scott Clark upon His Retirement from Westminster Seminary California gathers former students, colleagues, and friends to write in tribute to Scott’s legacy. Addressing ecclesiastical matters, theology, church history, and contemporary issues featured in Scott’s teaching and writing ministry, the authors aim to show what they have learned from Scott in the hope that many others will continue to benefit from what Scott has said and written over the decades. His work continues through the Heidelberg Reformation Association, which you may support by purchasing and sharing this work.

You Can Order it here: Remembering the Reformed Confession

Contents:

“Remembering the Reformed Confession in R. Scott Clark’s Life and Ministry”—Harrison Perkins
“Ecclesiology: The Parity (and Sometimes Parody) of Ministers”—Dan Borvan
“Confessions and Reform: An Essay”—W. Robert Godfrey
“Reforming the Church”—Chad Vegas
“Pastoring God’s People”—Christopher J. Gordon
“The Regulative Principle of Worship”—Scott C. McDermand II
“The Pactum Salutis in Hebrews 7:20–22”—S. M. Baugh
“Covenant and Christ’s Community”—Harrison Perkins
“God’s Two Powerful Words”—Michael Horton
“Sanctification: The Monergistic Work of God’s Free Grace”—Tony Phelps
“If You Recover Reformed Confessionalism, Will Anyone in the Churches Hear It?”—D. G. Hart
“Learning to Love Protestant Scholasticism”—Patrick J. O’Banion
“Ecumenism, Culture, and Kingdoms”—Brad Isbell
“Friendly Fire: Baptists and Reformed”—Patrick Abendroth and Mike Abendroth
“Theological Education”—Zachary Purvis

Anything Richard Muller writes is important. This book on Calvin is due in March of 2027

Here’s the publisher’s blurb:

Reformed Christians look to John Calvin's 1559 edition of Institutes of the Christian Religion as their doctrinal foundation. Yet an exclusive focus on the finished form of this seminal work may cause us to overlook the growth and evolution of the author and how those in Calvin's orbit helped shape his thought.

In Calvin and His Contemporaries, the culmination of four decades of research, renowned Reformation scholar Richard Muller traces the intricate connections between Calvin's thought and that of his fellow reformers across Europe, including Pierre Viret, Philip Melanchthon, and Theodore Beza. By analyzing Calvin's letters and early drafts of the Institutes, Muller illustrates how Calvin's theology developed dynamically over time, with special attention paid to Calvin's Christology and doctrine of the Lord's Supper.

Muller's study reveals that Calvin was an exegete and theologian thoughtfully responding to the issues of his time, making Calvin and His Contemporaries essential reading for students of the Reformation, Calvin specialists, and Reformed Christians seeking to expand their knowledge of their history.

You can preorder from Baker Academic at a discounted price

Ever wonder why and how confessional Reformed and Presbyterian churches worship the way they do?

The Publisher’s Blurb:

Discover the depth, beauty, and enduring power of historic Reformed worship.
In The Worship of the Reformed Church, esteemed pastor and scholar Terry L. Johnson presents a comprehensive, compelling case for recovering the biblical, theological, and historical foundations of Reformed worship in our contemporary age. With clarity and conviction, Johnson demonstrates how Scripture-saturated, God-centered, gospel-structured worship not only shaped centuries of Christian piety but remains essential for forming faithful, mature disciples today.

Drawing from the Reformers, the church fathers, and modern scholarship, Johnson explores every aspect of corporate worship – reading, preaching, praying, singing, and the administration of the sacraments – showing how each element serves as a vital means of grace. He also offers practical guidance for pastors, elders, and congregations seeking to implement historic Reformed patterns with excellence, reverence, and pastoral wisdom.

This book helps readers understand:

• Why historic Reformed worship is rooted in Scripture and the early church

• How worship shapes belief, character, and long-term spiritual vitality

• The strengths of God-centered, Bible-filled, gospel-structured order of service

• Practical steps for restoring classic Reformed elements in modern congregations

• The dangers of consumer-driven, entertainment-oriented worship trends

In an era marked by shallow spirituality and shifting tastes, this book calls the church back to its rich heritage – demonstrating that true renewal is found not in novelty, but in the enduring practices that have sustained believers for generations.

It is available and you can order it here: The Worship of the Reformed Church

Zackary Purvis on the Significance of the Printing Press

Here’s the publisher’s blurb

During the Reformation, theologians wrote, colleagues annotated, scribes recorded, and printers toiled, bringing Protestant doctrine and practice to life and transforming European society. Demonstrating the benefit of integrating histories of culture and scholarship with historical theology, this book invites readers to view the Reformation and its writings with fresh eyes.

Instead of focusing solely on the printing press as an agent of change, Reading the Reformation recalls the forgotten methods of writing, annotating, publishing, and preserving texts by key Protestant reformers, from Martin Luther to John Calvin, from Martin Bucer to the Westminster Assembly. Zachary Purvis covers a broad range of topics, meticulously illuminating the physical and mental labor behind the texts that fostered the Reformation.

This book is an indispensable resource for students, scholars, history enthusiasts, and anyone interested in the transformative power of the written word during one of the most pivotal eras of European history.

It is due out early in November: You Can order it here

Last, but by no means least, is Michael Horton’s new book, due in April of 2027.

This is the third and final volume of the Divine Self series

Here’s the publisher’s blurb:

The definitive history of “spiritual but not religious” thought in the modern era

In this third and final volume of The Divine Self series, Michael Horton traces the development of “spiritual but not religious” thought in modernity, starting with the metaphysical insights of the Enlightenment and ending with the transhumanist ideals of Silicon Valley. 

As Horton surveys the arc of modern history, he offers fresh perspectives on familiar figures such as Jonathan Edwards, Immanuel Kant, William Blake, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Friedrich Nietzsche. He also introduces readers to movements and events that are less well known: the surprising rise of Gnostic feminism in the nineteenth century, the exclusive Eranos gatherings in the early twentieth century, and more. Combining extensive research with a comprehensive grasp of history, Horton shows how key intellectual trends―including rationalism’s critique of external religious authority, pietism’s emphasis on inner experience, and Romanticism’s celebration of individual feeling―combined to produce the modern conviction that authentic spirituality is found not in church doctrine but in individual consciousness.

Concluding with a perceptive analysis of worldviews that currently pervade the tech sector, Horton persuasively shows that as institutional Christianity declines in the West, it is being replaced not by science per se but by natural supernaturalism. Ambitious and expansive, this volume―along with volumes 1 and 2 in the series―is an essential resource for anyone who wants to understand the “spiritual but not religious” phenomenon in Western culture.

You can pre-order here: Theosophist and Humanist

God’s Love of Sinners–the Ground of the Gospel

I think it safe to say that most people would identify “love one another” as the primary ethical teaching of Christianity. No doubt, the love of neighbor is an apt summary of those things required by the second table of the law (commandments 5-10). Jesus even spoke this way in Matthew 22 when he summarized the law. But whenever the Bible directs us to love our neighbor, we must not forget that the context for this commandment is always God’s prior love for us. As the apostle John puts it in verse 10 of the fourth chapter of his first epistle, “in this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” It is because of God’s prior love for us–a love which moved God to send his son to suffer and die to take away the guilt of our sins–that we, in turn, are to love our neighbors.

The indicative–the gospel, i.e., what God does for us in Christ–must be properly related to the imperative–the necessity of obeying God’s commands. Understanding this distinction is vital if we are to make full sense of 1 John and the apostle’s stress upon the necessity of obeying the commandments of God, specifically the command to love others as we would ourselves.

The Background Revisited

As we have seen throughout our time in John’s epistles, understanding the specific historical circumstances which prompted John to write these epistles is essential if we are to understand why John addresses the particular topics in the way that he does. Having composed his gospel (likely a year or so earlier), John must now respond to a group of false teachers who had departed from the faith, having supposedly gained insight into the secret teachings of Jesus. Having imbibed from what John calls the spirit of antichrist (a form of proto-Gnosticism), these individuals were denying that Jesus was God manifest in the flesh.

While affirming that Jesus is truly God, the false teachers also affirmed that Jesus merely took the form of a human–explaining his physical appearance as recounted in the gospels. This fully divine but not truly human Jesus flies directly in the face of everything John had taught in his gospel, which depicts Jesus as the eternal word manifest in human flesh. The denial of Jesus’s human nature poses a great threat to the church, which explains why John opens this epistle with the declaration that he himself had seen Jesus in the flesh, that he had heard Jesus preach, and that he had even seen Jesus perform miracles. Jesus was no docetic phantom without flesh, blood, and bones. Jesus is God manifest in the flesh. To deny Christ’s true human nature is to deny Christianity. It is to embrace the spirit of antichrist.

Closely connected to the false teaching which denies Jesus’s true human nature (the heresy of docetism), is an indifference to the commandments of God. In the opening chapter, John has warned us about claiming to be without sin. Given John’s stress upon the necessity of Christians striving to obey the commandments of God, it is reasonable to assume that those who embraced the docetic Jesus believed that they had mastered the power of sin, and were claiming that they had actually reached the point where they ceased from sinning. Because of this self-deception, these people saw no need of obeying the commandments. John describes this as “the practice of sin,” which ultimately produces the kind of worldliness we see in a figure like Cain–who murdered his brother because he was jealous that Abel brought an acceptable sacrifice to God when his produce offering was not accepted.

The Incarnation Is Central

It is because of this denial of our Lord’s true human nature and the errors that were connected to it, that John stresses the importance of Christ’s incarnation–Jesus is truly God and fully human. Those whom Jesus has brought from death to life (and who are now born again), those for whom Jesus has died as a propitiation, those for whom Jesus presently intercedes in heaven before the Father, as well as those upon whom he has poured out the blessed Holy Spirit, will inevitably struggle with sin and they will seek to obey God’s law. Therefore, those who are truly Christ’s will not “practice” sin, in the sense of remaining indifferent to it. From the opening words of this epistle, John has been arguing that what we believe about Jesus must impact how we live our lives.

In order to contrast the truth with the error with which he is dealing, John makes his case in chapter two that Christians must strive to obey God’s commandments, they must love their brothers and sisters in Christ, they must avoid worldliness (thinking and acting like a non-Christian) and be fully aware that many antichrists are already present in the world–an antichrist being anyone who denies that Jesus is God in the flesh. In chapters three and four John repeats these same themes, each time adding new points of emphasis. In the opening verses of chapter four, John reminds us that we need to be ever-vigilant in regard to false teaching and false teachers who–because they speak the world’s language–will always be able to gain a hearing, but who will deny the truth that Jesus is God manifest in the flesh, a doctrine which the apostles have all taught with one voice from the very beginning. John’s words remind us that it is not a question of “if” false teachers will come, but rather it is only a matter of “when.”

Two times earlier in this epistle, John has spoken of the necessity of Christian love–that is, how we regard our brothers and sisters in Christ. In verse 23 of chapter 3 (which echo the words of John 13:34), John stated “this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.” In chapter 4:7-21, John will again take up the necessity of loving one another. It was William Tyndale who said of this section of John, “John singeth his old song again.”[1] Indeed, he does. Although repeating the same basic point, John changes the emphasis significantly, this time focusing upon how Christian love flows out of God’s love. But John immediately moves on from considering God’s love in the abstract, to considering God’s love as it is manifest in history–Christ’s work on the cross in offering himself as a propitiation for our sins.

Love of Neighbor is a Mark of a Christian

So, with that bit of context in mind, we turn to our text, 1 John 4:7-21. Growing directly out of the point John has labored so hard to establish–if we believe that Jesus is God manifest in the flesh, then we will strive to obey God’s commands–in verse 7, John returns to our Lord’s well-known commandment that believers must love one another–a commandment also found in the law and its various stipulations as spelled out in Leviticus 19:9-18. “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.” There are a couple of important things of which we need to take note as we proceed.

The first is this is the first of three times in this section alone when John speaks of the necessity of Christians loving one another. If the amount of times something is repeated is a clue as to its importance, then this is a very important matter for John. As I pointed out previously, we need to be careful not to read this as John Wesley would have us do–John is discussing sanctification and the need for a Christian to move on from a basic faith in Christ to a deeper, more profound Christian experience grounded in our ability to love our neighbor. John is not addressing the methods or means by which we supposedly move to a level where we demonstrate greater obedience to the commandments.

Rather, the apostle is making the point that the difference between those who believe that Jesus is God manifest in the flesh and those who don’t, is rather obvious. Believers will strive to obey God’s commands, and will therefore demonstrate, however imperfect, a genuine love for other Christians. Those who have embraced the docetic heresy and the phantom Jesus are not interested in such obedience to God’s commands, nor will they demonstrate love for others. After all, they no longer sin, and they have gained insight into the mysteries of the universe, which renders John’s discussion of Jesus and sin rather boring. This is the same sorts of comments we hear from the spiritual but not religious today.

Love for Neighbor Is Grounded in God’s Love of Us

The second thing to keep in mind here is the reason why John restates this point so emphatically. All human love has its origin in God, who is love. If we are truly of God (which, as John has been arguing throughout this epistle means that God has called us to life through the gospel, that Christ has died for us, and that Jesus is even now presently interceding for us with our Father in heaven), then we will demonstrate that to be the case through our love for each other. Notice the way John frames this command. Let us love one another (an imperative). Why? Because love is from God (an indicative). Therefore, whoever loves has been born of God and knows God (also an indicative). The usual order of things (the indicative, followed by the imperative) is reversed, but the point still stands. We do not gain (or earn) God’s love, if only we succeed in loving others. Rather, when we reflect upon the fact that God is love (that having been revealed to us in God’s word), then we will in turn love others.

No doubt, this renewed discussion of the necessity of loving the brethren is framed by John with the opponents of the orthodox view of Jesus’s humanity clearly in the apostle’s mind. The false teachers may claim to truly know Christ, but they do not. The evidence which proves that they do not is that they don’t love the brethren. In fact, their actions indicate that they are not only indifferent to the commandments of God (they think they are without sin), but in seeking to deceive others they demonstrate that they don’t know the truth. What they are doing is bringing destruction to the body of Christ, and to God’s people, by propagating their false teaching about Christ’s human nature. To lead someone away from the true Christ to the spirit of antichrist, is about the most unloving thing a person can do.

Correct Doctrine Will Bear Fruit

John has stressed the importance of truth and discernment in verses 1-6. Here in verse 7, he ties truth to action. The truth is that God is love. And because God is love, those who know him, will seek to practice God’s love. The error is that Jesus is not truly human. Those who hold this error deny that God is love (in that he sent his son to redeem us from our sins). When they teach this heresy and encourage others to embrace it (worldliness), they are demonstrating hatred for their brethren, as did Cain. This is why John can state in verse 8, “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” Those who claim to know God (more specifically, the secret things revealed to an enlightened few) but don’t love others, thereby prove that they don’t know God. Those who know the truth (that God is love) will demonstrate that to be the case by loving others. All of this flows out of our knowledge of God. Again, for John, knowing the truth is the basis for action. Correct doctrine precedes ethics.

In verses 9-10, John makes the case that God’s love is not some ethereal abstract principle (along the lines being argued by the proto-Gnostics). While there is ample evidence of God’s love throughout redemptive history (especially seen in the call of Abraham and the formation of Israel, certainly in God’s loving faithfulness to his covenant promises, even in the face of Israel’s stubborn disobedience), the supreme illustration of the statement “God is love” is seen in the cross of Jesus Christ. John puts it this way. “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” With this assertion, it now becomes clear to John’s reader why those who deny that Jesus was truly human cannot truly affirm that God is love. Why is this? This is because God’s love is manifest in a very particular way. The word was manifest in the flesh, not just to show us that God could come to earth in a body if he so wished. The word became flesh for a very specific reason–to save us from our sins. Yet, this is the very thing a docetic phantom Jesus could not do–die for our sins–if Jesus was not truly human.

The Cross is the Proof of God’s Love of Sinners

John’s whole point is that God not only showed us his love (and therefore defined love along the lines of the self-sacrifice of Jesus Christ, his own beloved son), but as John says, the cross is the very essence of God’s love–“this is love!” And such love has its origins in God, who is love.[2] Therefore, by denying that Jesus was truly human, the false teachers were also denying that in the death of Jesus, God saves us from our sins. God’s love is manifest when he sent Christ into the world. And God’s love is defined by the sacrifice of Christ. While we should have been the objects of God’s wrath, God, demonstrating his love for sinners, sent Jesus to die for all those whom he will make alive through the preaching of the gospel.

Those who know God through Christ must love their brothers and sisters. Yet, true love is not found in us, but in what God did for us. Thus God’s love in Christ–specifically the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ, for us, and in our place, is the basis of our love for others. To put it another way, if we trust in Christ’s death to save us, and know ourselves to be unworthy sinners, then we must strive to love all those other unworthy sinners for whom Christ died. The command to love our fellow Christians is a command that cannot be truly understood apart from the cross of Christ.

John spells out the indicative and imperative in verse 11. “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” When we consider the love of God in light of the cross of Christ–“God so loved us,” then we must respond accordingly, “we ought to love one another.” This is why the Reformed have been concerned to argue that the commandment to “love our neighbor” when considered apart from the cross (the gospel) not only gives us no power to obey its demand, it actually condemns us. Commanding me to love my neighbor (apart from the gospel) only makes me hate my neighbor (because I can’t love them and they only increase my own sin and condemnation). But show me God’s love for his people in the suffering of Christ, then suddenly I find myself loving my neighbor. This is how John frames the commandment. If we miss this, we miss the main point, and we are only condemned by John’s command. But when the commandment is viewed through the lens of the suffering of Christ (the gospel), suddenly my neighbor becomes lovable!

God’s Love Is Manifest In the Person and Work of Jesus

Continuing to flesh out the point that we should not speculate about God’s attributes, but consider God’s love in light of the person and work of his son Jesus, in verse 12, John states, “No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.” We are creatures bound by time and space. God is not a creature and is bound by neither. In his gospel (4:24), John states that “God is Spirit,” therefore no human being can see him and live. This is why it is only so much foolishness to speculate about God’s nature and attributes apart from his self-revelation in Scripture. God’s love is manifest in the person and work of his son, and is applied to us by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, in Christ, we can say with all certainty that God’s love is manifest. If we love one another (the fruit of Christ’s giving us life, dying for us, and interceding for us), God’s love can be said to abide in us.

In fact, John can even say Christ’s love is perfected in us. Again, we should not take this to mean that we reach a point where we can love others perfectly, or know the “perfect” love of God (and we are in some way deficient or negligent if we haven’t). Rather, John’s point is that God’s love is made manifest in Christ’s person and work, and is then applied to us so that it is made perfect (or better, “brought to completion”). Those who know Christ, and who have considered the meaning of the cross, will enjoy that loving fellowship with their fellow sinners.

John’s point here is simply that we can indeed work backwards from the presence of Christian love and fellowship in our midst to the fact that it is God’s love which dwells in us, indeed which completes us. And this love is not only manifest in the cross, it is the goal of Christ’s work. As he saves us from our sins, Jesus actually brings us to a place where we do indeed love one another. Given the depths of our sinfulness, that is rather remarkable!

Assurance of Our Salvation

In verse 13, John returns to the topic of the assurance of salvation and how “we know that we know.” This, of course, is a response to the Gnostic stress upon secret knowledge and enlightenment. Says John, “By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.” Given the truth of what John has just said about the work of Christ as the supreme manifestation of God’s love, we can draw the following conclusions.

The first is that the presence of love is the proof that we abide in God and he in us. This comes about, John says, because of the work of the Holy Spirit. Apart from the Spirit indwelling us, we not only would not believe in Christ and trust in his death, we would remain unable and uninterested in loving our brothers and sisters in Christ. John is not saying if we love our neighbors, the Spirit will indwell us. Quite the opposite, John is saying that the presence of love of neighbor in our midst is the fruit of the Spirit’s indwelling, not its cause.[3] The Spirit’s presence is the proof that we abide in Christ. Because of the work of God’s Spirit, we know that we know.

The second thing we can conclude, says John, is that the work of the Spirit in our midst is directly tied to the truth of the gospel. “And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.” The Spirit is not going to lead us away from that flesh and blood Savior to another Jesus who has supposedly revealed himself to an enlightened few, who, in turn, will now tell us the secrets which Jesus supposedly revealed to them. No, John and the apostles saw the Jesus whom the Father sent. John bears witness to the truth of what he himself has seen. “We have seen, and therefore we testify!” Jesus is the Savior of the world. He was sent by God to save his people. And to fulfill his mission, Jesus took to himself a true human nature. There is no Christianity and no salvation from sin if he didn’t.

Indeed, John goes on to say, “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.” John’s opponents cannot affirm such a thing. They may claim to have knowledge but they know nothing of the true Christ. The phantom Jesus is not the Son of God, nor that Savior God sent into the world. But whoever confesses that Jesus is eternal God and a flesh and blood Savior (i.e. God’s Son) is assured by God’s Spirit that God abides in them, and that they abide in God. And so as John puts it in verse 16, “So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.”

For John the entire gospel stands or falls based upon the truth of Christ’s incarnation. And since Christians trust in Jesus as God manifest in the flesh, they have believed the testimony of those who saw Jesus in the days of his flesh (and so they “know” what John is saying is true). And because they too have trusted in that one whom John has proclaimed to them, they know that the love of God has been manifest in Jesus Christ and his cross, for all to see. Christians know what it means to say “God is love.” They know that in affirming that glorious truth, they are also affirming that God abides in them, and they abide in him.

Love Is Perfected in Us

All of this, John says, is for the purpose of assuring us of God’s favor. In Philippians, Paul makes the same point John is making this way–“And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” God is not going to begin his redemptive work in us and then just give up if we don’t perform up to expectations. In verse 17, John speaks of this assurance in very similar terms. “By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world.” John has already used the key word here (“confidence”) in chapter two, verse 28–“And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming.” Here in chapter four, John is reminding us that God’s loving purpose will ultimately bring everything to the end which God has appointed. In this case, John says, there is coming a day of judgment, something which people usually fear (and with good reason). Standing before God and being judged for our sin is not a pleasant thought.

But because of God’s love (which God has perfected is us–through giving us life, sending Christ to die and to intercede for us, along with giving us the Holy Spirit who now indwells us) we ought not to be afraid, but remain confident. The reason why we are not to be afraid is that this confidence is not found within us (in our obedience, our ability to love our brothers and sisters, our “goodness” or any other such thing). Rather, our confidence is to be found in God’s love, specifically as that love is manifest in the cross of Jesus, who offered up himself as a propitiation for our sins. If Jesus has already taken upon himself God’s wrath, for us, and in our place, how can God pour out his wrath upon us on the day of judgment, when Christ has already turned that wrath away. No, we are to have confidence on the day of judgment because of Christ’s finished work on our behalf.

In fact, as John puts it in verse 18, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.” The only way not to fear the coming judgment is to look to the cross. In the death of Jesus, we see the love of God perfected. And that love should cast out our fear. Christ has already endured judgment day for us and in our place. This means that the second coming of Christ is not something to be feared, but greatly anticipated.

God’s Love Came First

Therefore, says John, in words which wonderfully clarify the difference between the indicative and the imperative (the law and the gospel), “We love because he first loved us.” John’s point cannot be missed. We can love others only because of God’s prior love for us. We cannot gaze upon the cross and not see God’s love, and not feel compelled to reflect God’s love in our own lives. John sees the connection too. As he reminds us in verses 20-21, those who understand the suffering of Christ (in his true human nature, for us, and in our place) will surely strive to love their equally unlovable and sinful brothers and sisters in Christ. “If anyone says, `I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.’” What we believe about God, John says, must work itself out in our actions. If we have truly come to understand God’s love for us, how can we not love those for whom Christ has died and for whom he is presently interceding? Those who teach and love false doctrine, and who brag about their victory over sin, simply do not and cannot get it. How can you love God, while trying to persuade someone to embrace the spirit of the antichrist? You cannot.

Where John Wesley missed the mark is in trying to quantify the amount and intensity of the love we must have for others, all the while urging us on until we reach perfect obedience. But this completely misses the fact that for John it is not the degree, but the presence of love for others which proves we are Christ’s, especially in light of the behavior of those who trust in the phantom docetic Jesus who could not truly lay down his life for our sins. And that is why it is so important to keep the historical context in mind, as well as give due consideration to the distinction between indicatives and imperatives.

Application

Although I’ve never loved anyone the way I am supposed to, the fact is that what truly matters is not my ability to love, but that God loved me first. The commandment to love my neighbor gives me no ability to actually love my neighbor. But the glorious news that God’s love is revealed in the death of Jesus (God manifest in the flesh) for my sins actually creates in my heart a love for my neighbor. And this cannot happen in the lives of those who reject our Lord’s true humanity and who would leave us with a “Savior” who cannot save us.

As John reminds us, “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” And because God first loved us in Christ, and then sent Jesus in the flesh to suffer and die for all my sins, John can also remind us of the glorious fact that, “By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world.” That fully divine, truly human Jesus, has saved us from our sins. In this God’s love is completed and we need never fear judgment day again. Amen.

__________________________________

[1] Cited in Stott, The Letters of John, 162.

[2] Stott, The Letters of John, 164.

[3] Stott, Letters of John, 169.

Having set forth the orthodox teaching, the Synod rejects the errors of those

Who teach that those who truly believe and have been born again can commit the sin that leads to death (the sin against the Holy Spirit).

For the same apostle John, after making mention of those who commit the sin that leads to death and forbidding prayer for them (1 John 5:16–17), immediately adds: “We know that anyone born of God does not commit sin” [that is, that kind of sin], “but the one who was born of God keeps himself safe, and the evil one does not touch him” (v. 18).

_______________________________

The issue raised here is whether a Christian can commit the sin unto death mentioned in 1 John 5:16–18. The Canons of Dort, Fifth Head of Doctrine, Article 6, specifically teach that God does not permit his elect to fall so far that they commit the sin unto death or the sin against the Holy Spirit (the so-called “unpardonable sin”) and plunge themselves into eternal ruin. The Canons do not deny that genuine believers can fall into serious sin; rather, they affirm that God preserves them from final apostasy and eternal destruction. John writes, “we know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him” (1 John 5:18). According to John, those born of God are protected from continuing in sin and from the wiles of the Devil (the evil one).

As noted in the previous articles on the fifth head of doctrine regarding perseverance, Arminians insist that salvation ultimately stems from an act of the human will—choosing to trust in Jesus Christ. Of course, Arminians argue that universal grace is available to all who seek it, but such grace remains merely provisional and conditional unless people avail themselves of it. If this is true, then it naturally follows that one can, through an exercise of the will, cease believing, fall from grace, and ultimately be lost.

The mention of a sin that leads to death in 1 John 5:16 is used as a proof text to support the idea that, should a Christian commit this sin, they do indeed fall away, nullifying the Reformed doctrine of final perseverance.

This is why it is important to notice that John makes a distinction here between sin that leads to death and sin that does not. John does not define this sin, and Christians have long been divided over its meaning. Some take this to refer to a specific sin, such as those mentioned in the Mosaic law as capital offenses (to be punished by death). Some of the church fathers interpreted this to mean that there were sins of ignorance and other sins stemming from wanton rebellion against God—the latter leading to death. This eventually led to Rome’s distinction between venial sin and the so-called seven deadly “mortal sins.” Rome’s view is in error, given the arbitrary nature of the distinction. It certainly does not fit the context here.

Others take John to be referring to the sin of apostasy. If true, John would be referring to a situation similar to that described in Hebrews 6:4–6.

For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.

The author of Hebrews is referring to someone who returns to Judaism and works-righteousness after professing faith in Christ. If John were affirming the same situation here, the apostle would be saying that those who embrace the docetic Jesus of the antichrist commit a sin that severs them from Christ. If correct, this would pit John against himself. A Christian cannot commit such a sin: “No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God” (1 John 3:9). But if John is referring only to a professing Christian (and not a true believer)—someone who eventually reveals their unbelief by imbibing the spirit of antichrist and then committing apostasy—this interpretation would carry considerable weight. Remember, John does speak of those who have gone out from us because they were not of us (1 John 2:19).

A third option is that John is referring to blasphemy against the Holy Spirit—a sin committed by the Pharisees, as recounted in Mark 3:28–30. “Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin—for they were saying, He has an unclean spirit.’” The circumstances mentioned by Mark and those John describes are completely different. The Pharisees had just witnessed Jesus heal and perform exorcisms and then attributed God’s power to the work of Satan.

We do not know with certainty what sin John is discussing, although I think the evidence tends to point toward the apostasy of a professing Christian. At the very least, we must say what John says: There is a sin that leads to death, and this cannot be said of those born of God.

Two caveats apply here. The first is that any Christian who is afraid that they have committed such a sin has not. This sin can be committed only by those who are too hard of heart to worry about having committed it. The second caveat is given to us by John himself in verse 17: “all wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death.” All violations of God’s law (in thought, word, and deed) are sin, and we must repent of them and seek forgiveness. All sin must be taken seriously and confessed.

Given John’s warning, in verses 18–20 John once again seeks to ensure that his readers have assurance of their salvation and understand that he has not been referring to them when he speaks of a sin that leads to death.

We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him. We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.

The Arminian view that a Christian can commit a sin unto death and be lost is in error.

Episode Synopsis:

In the opening eight verses of Romans chapter 3, Paul continues to address the matter of Jewish hypocrisy by asking a series of rhetorical questions that have obvious answers. The Jews were given many blessings by God as beneficiaries of the national covenant he made with Israel at Mount Sinai—especially the covenant sign and seal of circumcision. Yet the Jews mistakenly assumed that the mere possession of these blessings protected them from the wrath of God that was coming upon the Gentiles. The Jews condemned the Gentiles for their godless conduct but, as it turns out, were doing many of the same things themselves.

To expose such hypocrisy, Paul now takes up a role in which the apostle speaks as a former Jew, who is then answered by “Paul the apostle.” Each of these questions and answers is designed not only to expose Jewish hypocrisy but also to remind his Jewish readers of God’s right to judge his disobedient people. God alone tells the truth and does not lie. And those who claim to be spared from judgment by the mere possession of covenant blessings will find themselves exposed to the covenant curses and will realize that God is just and righteous when he punishes the disobedient—especially the hypocritical.

But Paul also addresses an objection he has heard that reveals the depths of misunderstanding regarding the judgment of God. Someone is claiming that since God judges sin and evil, then sin and evil are good things, since through them God reveals his righteousness. So why not sin if it serves God’s purposes? Paul quickly and forcefully rebukes those teaching such things. As he says in verse 8, their condemnation is just.

Show Notes:

Romans 3:1-8 presented me with a dilemma. I could have tagged this discussion on to the end of episode ten (Romans 2:17-29) which would make the episode run well over an hour, or I could have added it to the beginning of the next episode (Romans 3:9-20), which would have the same effect. Since it is best to cover Romans 3:9-20 in a single episode, I decided to treat verses 1-8 of Romans 3 separately, but since this meant a short run time (about about twenty-two minutes), I thought that this would be a good time to include bonus material on resources on Paul’s letters.

It was a difficult recording session—a technical issue took me a bit to figure out, it was very hot, and there was a bunch of outside noise to edit out.

Recommended Resources:

As mentioned, here’s a look at the Behind the Scenes at the Blessed Hope Podcast

Select Resources for the Study of Romans

B. B. Warfield: God Inspired Scripture

Connecting Scripture is a CSV (Christian Standard Version) New Testament which does something no other New Testament does. The biblical text has blue and green color coding to indicate when a biblical saying is either a direct citation from the New Testament (blue) or an allusion to something in the Old Testament (green). This enables the reader to see where a New Testament writer quotes from or draws allusion to something in the Old Testament—the thought world of New Testament writers.

Guy Manuell, The People in Paul’s Letters: A Compendium of Characters. This is a great aid to reading Paul’s letters. Manuell gives a biographical account of every person mentioned by Paul. Some entries are brief (if there’s nothing known of the person), some are extensive (such as Timothy and Titus).

Frank Thielman’s book, Paul, the Apostle of Grace is the new standard for Pauline biography. In the manner of F. F. Bruce’s magisterial, Paul the Apostle of the Heart Set Free, which looks broadly at Paul’s life and times, Thielman has given us a modern, scholarly, and readable biography of Paul. This is not a theology of Paul in the manner of Ridderbos, Vos, Gaffin, or Beale. This is a remarkable effort to consider Paul’s life and ministry from his birth to his death, based upon the mass of available data, and very skillfully woven into a compelling narrative.

Trevin Wax: The Letters of Paul in 30 Days. A great devotional!

Paul Barnett, A Short Book About Paul. A solid and useful introduction to Paul’s life and thought

Music:

(Shutterstock): Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op 92m, second movement, Allegret

Riddleblog and Blessed Hope Updates:

• I am pleased to announce that I have a substantial book and an academic essay forthcoming, Lord willing. Both are under contract and should reach publication by the end of 2027 or early 2028. I am very excited about these projects and I’ll tell you more about them later (when I can)

• I am hard at work on the Romans series on the Blessed Hope Podcast. I hope you are enjoying going through Romans as much as I am! There are eleven episodes posted, with about fifteen episodes written. Completing these projects may require a break in podcast releases early in the New Year. We’ll see how this all unfolds

Thinking Out Loud:

• Protestia is in my “X” feed and I must say, glimpsing at it is like passing an auto accident and slowing down to gawk. One of the frequent images from progressive churches is the number of middle age and older women clergy. My guess is that in their off-hours or before they were ordained, many of them are known by their neighbors as “cat ladies,” or a vocal “Karen” who shows up to complain to their HOA board that someone is flying an American flag or wearing a Maga hat while walking their dog through the neighborhood. Those who loved quilting and arts and crafts are now finding/creating liturgical vestments adored by their congregations of a dozen or so seniors and their caregivers, who like the bright colors and attend these churches on Sundays as outings from their residential facilities. These “cleric-ettes” even wear their fuzzy slippers to work! Thanks, Protestia, for reminding us of the absolute folly and soul-risking danger of progressive theology

• When my musings become fantasies, I can only wonder what life in America would be like if we are one people, united by a constitutional Republican government, where the legislative branch actually did its job. Then the fantasy goes away when I’m reminded of our two miserable political parties who rule our congress, trying to “own” each other, and not working together to get important things done at a time when important things really do need to be done

• If the Reformed ever had a “blessings of the animals” ceremony, would cats be included?

• As a Yankees fan I can’t help but take special delight in the fact that both the Red Sox and them cheatin’ Astros were eliminated from the playoffs on the same day. Then the Yankees self-destructed against the Rays. Ugh . . . the ups and downs of being a sports fan

• The title “Heritage American” is now a big deal in some Christian nationalist circles. If anyone has reason to be a Heritage American, I have more. 3x Mayflower descendant on my maternal side (Howland, Tilley, Allerton), my paternal line (Rötlisperger) arrived in PA in 1733. Of my 32 ancestral lines, the most recent one of them to arrive in America was in 1830. So, when asked about my nationality, I am truly an American. I do affirm “Christ is king” but always along with his other two offices (prophet and priest). As to lineage—Swiss (some) and British (mostly). As to criminal record or parking tickets, faultless. But I count it all dung to know I am a member of Christ’s church and am looking forward to the realization of my heavenly citizenship. And just in case one of these “Christian” nationalists becomes president, I do keep my passport current and pray the Swiss will take me back as a refugee

• We can only wonder what Trump’s presidency might have been like had he never opened a “Truth Social” account

• After spending so much time working through Romans 7:14-25, I think I’ll change my personal pronoun to the “wretched man”

• I don’t get the “care emoji.” It is supposed to be a “virtual hug,” but it looks like a cartoon monster, or a face in a bad dream. I’ll bet AI or the CCP will use it for nefarious purposes if not already doing so

• Endnotes are still a tool of the devil. When AI takes over, there will be no footnotes, only endnotes. Let that be a warning to you

Recently Read:

Richard Bell’s recent book, The American Revolution and the Fate of the World (2025), challenges the reader not to think of the Revolutionary War as an isolated conflict between Great Britain and thirteen rebellious colonies. Rather, Bell contends, the American Revolution was an important part of a much larger global conflict, a story which Bell strives to tell.

The book is arranged as a series of vignettes, each of which covers one facet of a much larger war of which the American Revolution was but a part. Each addresses a particular aspect of the conflict in a highly personalized way, centering around a central character who plays an important role in that portion of Bell’s larger story.

Take, for example, the Boston Tea Party—the tea which ended up in Boston Harbor came from China as a consequence of on-going trade wars and colonial aspirations in the Far East between the British, Dutch, and the Portuguese. Bell then takes up the role of the Hessians, who, as paid mercenaries from Prussia, fought for the British in America and elsewhere, with many staying behind in America once the war ended. Their descendants form a significant portion of the modern American populace.

Bell addresses an all-too often overlooked fact that the largest theater of the war was not the Atlantic Seaboard and Britain’s American colonies, but the Western frontier—everything west of the Berkshires and Appalachians. This Western territory amounted to a 3,000 mile long front, which had recently been controlled by the French (who were defeated in the French and Indian Wars), and now with the Spanish claiming a significant portion of Florida and the Mississippi valley (including New Orleans and territory as far north as Illinois). The Spanish, at war with Britain and allied with France, supplied much in the way of arms and gunpowder to the Patriots through all sorts of back channel means. There were numerous long forgotten battles and skirmishes in this Western region, which was filled with many unhappy native Americans betrayed by endless broken promises from the French, British, and the fledgling Americans.

Bell directs the reader’s attention to the French efforts to oust the British from their Caribbean holdings, which were far more important and lucrative to the British (sugar, rum, molasses, and tobacco), than goods imported to and from the colonies (lumber, cotton, tobacco). A massive French fleet under deGrasse fought the British navy to a draw at the hugely important but largely forgotten naval Battle of the Capes (or the Battle of the Chesapeake) and successfully deposited Rochambeau and his soldiers in Virginia. This was in preparation to trap Cornwallis at Yorktown. But that same French fleet was thoroughly defeated shortly after by His Majesty’s superior navy in the Caribbean. England lost America, but retained its vital interests elsewhere. And while all of that was going on, Spain made an all-out effort to take the fortress of Gibraltar back from the British, but failed miserably. During this same period, England struggled to retain the crown jewel of its colonial empire, India, overcoming Dutch and French efforts to ally themselves with indigenous groups seeking to throw off their British overlords. And, lest we forget, the British were establishing yet another new colonial entity while war was raging globally—the vast penal colony of Australia.

In the end, England lost its thirteen American colonies to independence and Florida to Spain—a huge set back. Yet, at the same time, King George retained Canada, the British holdings in the Caribbean, the fortress of Gibraltar which controlled the entrance to the Mediterranean, its crown jewel of India, and its trade routes to and from China, while at the same time decimating the French and Spanish navies and thereby defeating its two principle European foes. This was indeed a time of global warfare.

Bell’s book is an interesting read on an important but overlooked topic. You’ll enjoy it, as I did.

Recommended Links:

Recovering the Presbyterian Prayer Book

All of B. B. Warfield’s works now downloadable at Monergism, in an updated version

Here are a couple of important on-line resources to check out: Reformed Faith and Practice and Themelios

This is going to become an important issue across the country—doctrinal discrimination and church building permits

Ever wonder why things in the Middle East are the way they are? Then listen to this School of War episode: Simon Sebag Montefiore on the Middle East. Outstanding!

Fulton Sheen—A papal showman and the first TV evangelist

Just for Fun:

My favorite new sport

Fake AI pictures of dangerous animals terrorizing your community is now a thing. Fake crocs and vipers are the latest

My childhood suspicions about vegetables are confirmed

Speaking of crocs, what could possibly go wrong here?

Didn’t ZZ Top write a song about this? Arrested for Driving While Blind?

Now this is really creepy

Legionnaires disease at Yankee Stadium? Must be a CCP or a Red Sox plot

Speaking of bacterial disease, are these things not incubators for all kinds of the bad stuff?

That renowned expert on eschatology, J. D. Vance, says “the Antichrist is among us!” Hmmm . . . I’ll leave it at that . . .

Putin may not be able to push “wafer thin” Mr. Creosote out a window, so he better get a bucket

There are some weird proclivities out there—this used to be a high school insult to belittle the nerdy new kid, but, apparently, he grew up

McDonalds might be more of a threat than AI or flock cameras

I hope my wife doesn't see this. She’ll set one up for me in the backyard

Previous Musings: Late Summer Edition (8/24/2026)

Video:

AI is a complicated and difficult subject. Here’s the Biden administration’s AI Czar expert to explain it to us in 40 seconds.

John Wesley’s published journals run to four volumes with an opening entry dated October 14, 1735, with his final entry recorded on Sunday, October 24, 1790.

Wesley’s conversion account in 1738 is widely known. Here’s how I describe it in Season Five, Episode One, of my Blessed Hope Podcast deep dive into Romans:

Like Luther, John Wesley was yet another deeply troubled man. For ten years Wesley struggled to live out the demands of the Ten Commandments but finally confessed that he had not obtained freedom from sin, nor the witness of the Spirit, because he sought to gain all of these things through his own futile efforts, rather than through faith in Christ.

Exhausted and out of answers, he attended a meeting of the Moravian Brethren at Aldersgate street in London. It was there that Wesley heard the Preface from Luther's Commentary on Romans being read aloud. Wesley recalled, “I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt that I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation.” [1]

I lamented that, “it is too bad that Wesley’s mind was not enlightened when his heart was warmed because he would later go on to reject much of the contents of Luther’s commentary as Wesley’s theology eventually sank back into the semi-Pelagianism of the Middle Ages.”

The degree to which Wesley would later reject Luther becomes apparent in Wesley’s journal entry for Monday June 15, 1741:

I set out for London, and read over in the way that celebrated book, Martin Luther's comment on the Epistle to the Galatians. I was utterly ashamed. How have I esteemed this book, only because I heard it so commended by others; or at best, because I had read some excellent sentences occasionally quoted from it. But what shall I say now, I judge for myself. Now I see with my own eyes? Why, not only that the author makes nothing out, clears up not one considerable difficulty, that he is quite shallow in his remarks on many passages, and muddy and confused almost on all; but that he is deeply tinctured with Mysticism throughout, and hence often dangerously wrong. Two instances, only one or two points--How does he (almost in the words of Tauler), decry reason, right or wrong, as an irreconcilable enemy to the Gospel of Christ? Whereas, what is reason (the faculty so called), but the power of apprehending, judging, and discoursing? Which power is no more to be condemned in the gross than seeing, hearing, or feeling. Again, how blasphemously does he speak of good works and of the Law of God, constantly coupling the Law with sin, death, hell, or the devil; and teaching that Christ delivers us from them all alike. Whereas it can no more be proved by Scripture that Christ delivers us from the Law of God than that he delivers us from holiness or heaven. Here I apprehend, is the real spring of the grand error of the Moravians. They follow Luther, for better, for worse. Hence their "no works," "no law," "no commandments." But who art thou that "speakest evil of the law, and judgest the law?"

Just four years after being “strangely warmed,” Wesley now confesses to being “utterly ashamed” for previously speaking and thinking highly of Luther. It is unfortunate that as early as 1741, Wesley so badly misunderstood (best case) or rejected Luther’s theology (worst case) regarding several critical doctrines. In fact, by the time the Methodist Minutes were published (at some point after 1744), Wesley’s theology was now thoroughly couched in Semi-Pelagian terms, with hints of a full-blown Pelagianism lying just beneath the surface of the discussion recorded in the minutes. On this point, see my prior post, Wesley’s take on election and human obedience.

When Wesley charges Luther with mysticism, he is is making reference to Luther’s negative and at times hyperbolic comments about reason found throughout Luther’s Galatian commentary. Wesley assumed that Luther had jettisoned reason for some form of mysticism which Luther had picked up from the German mystic Tauler. What Wesley fails to understand is that while Luther loudly rejected the magisterial use of reason—reason could discover truth about God apart from revelation, with Luther calling such use of reason, the “devil’s whore”—Luther was no mystic. Elsewhere Luther affirmed the orthodox opinion that reason functions in a ministerial sense, enabling us to understand the Scriptures and distinguish truth from error. Wesley, on the other hand, seems not to know or understand the distinction.

It is also clear that Wesley does not grasp Luther’s various uses of the law as expressed by Luther in his Galatians commentary. Likely due to Luther’s combative style, Wesley completely misses Luther’s main point when the Reformer echoes Paul’s words in Galatians 2:16. Luther was adamant that good works cannot justify, but faith in Christ alone does. Yes, Luther uses some rather choice language directed at Rome in this regard to which Wesley obviously took offense, or flat out misunderstood Luther’s point.

Luther’s views on the three uses of the law are crystal clear, as set forth in his Small Catechism. Luther writes:

First, the Law helps to control violent outbursts of sin and keeps order in the world (a curb).

Second, the Law accuses us and shows us our sin (a mirror).

Third, the Law teaches us Christians what we should and should not do to live a God-pleasing life (a guide).  The power to live according to the Law comes from the Gospel.”

That Wesley finds Luther’s distinction between the law and the gospel so unintelligible and problematic exposes deeper issues. No one doubts Wesley’s zeal for proclaiming the gospel to which much of his preaching attests. But Wesley’s evangelical impulses are badly undermined by a theology which defaults to a self-declared Arminianism, and which in actuality is but a hair’s breadth from the errors of Pelagius. Such a theology will indeed feel shame when encountering Luther and sadly, leave people in the same condition Wesley was in before being strangely warmed at Aldersgate in 1738.

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[1] The Works of John Wesley, Third Edition, Complete and Unabridged, Volume 1 (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, Reprint Edition, 1979), 315-316.

Who Said That?

I can fill a church speaking on Revelation and empty it speaking on Romans

Leave your answer/guess in the comments section below. Please, no Google or ChatGP searches!

False Teachers Have Arrived

In his first epistle, John is defending the doctrine that Jesus is God manifest in the flesh against a group of false teachers who have departed from the truth by teaching that Jesus was not a flesh and blood Savior, but a deity who merely appeared in the form of a human. John calls this teaching–which is known to us today as the heresy of docetism–the spirit of antichrist (2 John 1:7). For the apostle, Christianity is not a religion in which one learns a set of secret principles revealed to a few enlightened individuals who have managed to gain insight into the “real” teaching of Jesus. For John, Christianity is a religion grounded in the historical work of a flesh and blood Savior (Jesus Christ) whom John has heard preach, whom John witnessed perform miracles, and whom John even touched with his own hands.

To deny that Jesus is truly human is to deny the truth of Christianity. Given the importance of this point, John once again returns to a discussion of the nature of the Christian truth claim, and warns his readers yet again of false teachers and antichrists, who will inevitably come and attempt to deceive God’s people. But John does more than merely warn us about these false teachers, he gives us a test to determine whether or not someone has imbibed from the Gnostic heresy–“does a teacher confess that Jesus is God in human flesh?”

Yet Another Warning

As we have been working our way through John’s epistles, we now come to the fourth chapter of 1 John. John is returning to issues in chapter 4 which he’s already addressed in the first three chapters. John likely does this for the sake of emphasis. In chapter two John had emphasized the need for Christians to obey God’s commandments, to reject worldliness (the non-Christian way of thinking and doing), and to heed his warning about the presence of many antichrists in the age in which we now live.

In chapter three, John repeats these themes while emphasizing different aspects of them. For example, not only must God’s people strive to obey his commandments, we are no longer to be characterized by the practice of sin. Furthermore, Christians will strive to love their brothers and sisters in Christ, while rejecting the murderous ways of Cain, who is the epitome of worldliness, and whose indifference toward God (i.e., his produce offering) and hatred of his brother Abel (whom he killed) prefigures those whom John describes as antichrists.

These false teachers, says John, deny that Jesus is God in the flesh. They seek out “esoteric,” secret truths about God, and they deceive themselves into thinking that they have somehow risen above sin. This explains their indifference to God’s commandments and their lack of love for both God and his people. They may claim to have gained “wisdom,” but John has repeatedly exposed them to be theologically clueless, which is a very serious and dangerous place to be.

Spiritual Darkness and the Appearance of Antichrist

In chapter two, John tells us that the difference between these two groups (Christians and those taken in by the false teachers) is as plain as the difference between light and darkness. In chapter three, John says the contrast between the two groups is apparent in the fact that Christians struggle against sin, while the proto-Gnostics do not. Now, as we make our way into chapter four, John stresses that the contrast is also made plain through someone’s confession about Christ. In this case, the truth claim is very specific. “Is Jesus God manifest in the flesh, or is he not?”

Recall that in verses 18-25 of chapter two, John introduced the figure of antichrist. As we saw when we worked through that portion of this epistle, according to John, many antichrists have already come. In 1 John 2:18-22, the apostle writes:

Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth. Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son.”

If an antichrist is someone who proclaims a message which denies that Jesus is the Christ (God manifest in the flesh), and if the very presence of these antichrists is characteristic of the last hour (the final period of human history), then the conclusion we must reach is fairly obvious. The final period in human history began with Christ’s ascension into heaven. We live in that same period of redemptive history as did John’s original audience. And just as the Christians in Ephesus (to whom John is writing) did combat with these antichrists, so must we. And while too many of our contemporaries have interpreted John’s message through the distorted lens of modern dispensationalism–antichrist is the one who makes a peace treaty with Israel at the start of the seven-year tribulation period and will attempt to brand everyone with the mark of the beast, the mysterious 666–John’s test for the presence of an antichrist is rather different. What does someone confess about Jesus Christ? Do they confess that Jesus is God manifest in the flesh? Or do they claim that Jesus is God who merely took the form of a man (like someone putting on a costume and playing a role) but was not truly human (with real flesh and blood).

To put it another way, Christianity is founded upon a particular set of historical facts. Did God truly take to himself a true human nature in the person of Jesus of Nazareth? Did that same Jesus, who was true and eternal God and true man, suffer and die for our sins, offering up a propitiatory sacrifice which turns aside God’s wrath toward our sins? Did that same Jesus rise bodily again from the dead and ascend into heaven where he presently intercedes for us as our advocate with the Father? If he did, then Christianity is true whether someone believes it or not. If he didn’t, then Christianity is false, no matter how many Christians believe it to be true.

Jesus Is God Manifest in the Flesh

As we move in chapter four, John’s primary point is that Jesus is God manifest in the flesh. This fact explains why John is so opposed to those teachers who deny that Jesus is God manifest in the flesh. Their denial not only flies in the face of what John knows to be true– “I saw, I heard, I touched”–but this destroys the foundation of the gospel. If Jesus is not truly human, then how can he save those of Adam’s race who have fallen into sin? A flesh and blood Jesus can be punished for us, in our place, because he is one of us. A phantom Jesus cannot bear the guilt of our sins in his flesh, since he has no true human nature and therefore cannot be punished for our sins.

You’ve heard the philosophical parlor game question, “if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?” It is the same thing with those who claim that all religions fall into the realm of emotion, feeling, and subjectivity, so that Christianity is just another expression of a person’s fear and uncertainty of the world around them. If people are afraid, they invent a God to help them cope. People may prefer Christianity to other religions, or they may be Christians because they were born into a Christian family. Or, they may even be Christians for a whole host of personal reasons. But because in their minds religion is purely subjective, then, there is no compelling reason to believe it other than personal opinion.

On the contrary, John declares that Christianity is founded upon the entrance of the eternal God into history in a particular person–Jesus of Nazareth. Those who deny this truth claim in the name of a phantom Jesus are antichrists. Those who deny this claim deny the truth, and they cannot be Christians no matter how pious they may be. By the way, the tree makes a noise when it falls. And if Jesus rose from the dead as God in human flesh, then Christianity is true whether anyone was there to see it or not. Yet, God saw fit to give us witnesses of Christ’s resurrection. Paul even says that in additional to those in the apostolic circle, over five hundred witnesses at one time saw Jesus alive after his resurrection.

Those Who Are Born from Above Will Do Good Works

If it is vital for us to understand the indicative and imperative moods to understand John’s teaching about the relationship between being born again (the indicative) and the necessity of good works (the imperative), it is also vital for us to understand that John is making a truth claim when he speaks about Christ’s incarnation. Those who have been born again, those for whom Christ has died, and those for whom Christ presently intercedes, will do good works. There is a cause and effect relationship here. Likewise, those who believe that Jesus is God manifest in the flesh must definitively reject any teaching that conflicts with this truth. Darkness is not only moral or ethical, it is also theological. Furthermore, they must reject (as a Christian) anyone who teaches anything contrary to the doctrine taught by the apostles who were witnesses to the life and ministry of Jesus.

John has warned those in Ephesus about the presence of many antichrists “who went out from us because they were not of us” (1 John 2:19). As we have seen, the apostle is warning us about these antichrists as well. So, just as he has repeated his points about the necessity of obedience to the commandments, the warning about worldliness, and the need to love our brothers and sisters, so too John reminds us that Christianity is grounded upon a truth claim, and that God’s people must oppose all those who deny the truth that Jesus is God manifest in the flesh. Christians must do combat with the spirit of antichrist.

So, with that bit of background, we turn to our text, 1 John 4:1-6, where John returns to the subject of antichrist as well as giving us a test by which we can determine who is doing the work of antichrist and who is not.

Another Gospel and Another Jesus

Although he’s writing perhaps as much as thirty years earlier than John, in 2 Corinthians 11, the Apostle Paul describes another serious situation facing the church in Corinth in the late fifties of the first century. Beginning in verse 3, Paul warns

But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough. . . . And what I do I will continue to do, in order to undermine the claim of those who would like to claim that in their boasted mission they work on the same terms as we do. For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.

According to Paul, largely through the efforts of Satan, who is the author of lies, there will be false teachers who come and preach a different gospel. And that false gospel centers in what Paul calls “another Jesus” and a “different spirit.”

Apparently, John sees a similar crisis facing the church in Asia Minor. In verse 1 of chapter 4, John seeks to warn his readers, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.” In Galatia, Paul was dealing with Judaizers–Jews who had come to believe that Jesus was the Messiah, but who were insisting that Gentiles undergo circumcision in order to be justified. In Corinth, Paul was dealing with certain individuals whom Paul calls “super-apostles.” These were men who were masquerading as ministers of the gospel, and who were using their office as an excuse to engage in all kinds of sinful behavior as well as to promote a false gospel. Likewise, John calls upon his beloved in Ephesus to “test the spirits to see whether they are from God.” It happened in Galatia. It happened in Corinth. It happened in Ephesus. It can certainly happen anywhere in the modern world.

The True Test of a Prophet

When John sets out his test for true prophets–those who properly preach about Christ–in many ways, his words echo the theological test required of God’s prophets as set forth by Moses in Deuteronomy 13:1-5.13:

If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the Lord your God is testing you, to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall walk after the Lord your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him. But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has taught rebellion against the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of slavery, to make you leave the way in which the Lord your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

Notice carefully, that the test is not the performance of signs and wonders, but faithfulness to prior revelation from God. In fact, in 2 Thessalonians 2:10-12, Paul gives us this warning about the Man of Sin (who may be the final culmination of John’s series of antichrists).

The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

Signs and wonders offer cover to false teachers. But false teachers can never hide behind the truth–hypocrites maybe, false teachers, never.

A New Religion Is Emerging – Gnosticism

In John’s context in Ephesus, the issue is an early form of Gnosticism which held that certain enlightened teachers had gained “knowledge.” This knowledge was tied to secret teachings which were not recorded in the New Testament, but which circulated independently among those interested in the “real truth.” This particular body of knowledge held that Jesus was not God manifest in the flesh, but God merely appearing in human form. John describes how such men left the church once they became enlightened. And having left the church (gone out into the world) they are now to be classified as “false prophets.” These false prophets are not to be believed and their message is to be tested. They have “another spirit” (to use Paul’s terms), which John now describes as the “spirit of antichrist.”

John’s test to determine whether or not these men possess the Spirit of God is quite simple. John spells it out for his readers in verses 2-3a. “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.” While many, no doubt, would expect God to confirm his prophets through some miraculous means, the fact is, he uses a much less spectacular method–the truth of the message, i.e., the gospel which had been preached by the disciples from the beginning.

In 1 John 3:24, John told his readers that those who are Christ’s (who have been born again, for whom Christ has died, and for whom he intercedes) are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Since there is only one Holy Spirit, when John mentions other “spirits” he is referring to those who claim to be speaking in the “Spirit” but who are actually speaking falsehoods in the name of the Spirit. This would be especially relevant in the context in which John finds himself–proto-Gnostics claiming to have knowledge, but who in actuality know nothing about Jesus or the Spirit.

Because false teachers claim the authority of the Holy Spirit, believers need to test whether or not those who preach in the name of Christ are preaching the truth. The proof is found in the content of the preaching. Does the preacher proclaim that Jesus is God manifest in the flesh? If he does, then the Spirit of God is at work in and through his preaching. If someone who claims to have knowledge, and claims to be speaking “in the spirit,” but then denies that Jesus is God in the flesh, then that teacher is not from God, no matter how many miracles they may perform, no matter what secrets they may claim to know, or no matter how pious they may be.

The Spirit of Antichrist Has Already Come

John makes it perfectly clear that this “spirit” which denies Christ’s human nature is not the Holy Spirit, but the “spirit of antichrist.” As the apostle writes in the last part of verse 3, “This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.” In the final days of his messianic mission, Jesus did indeed warn his disciples about the presence of false teachers. In the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24:3-6), Jesus answers a very insightful question from his disciples.

As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, `Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?’ And Jesus answered them, `See that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray.

Toward the end of the discourse, Jesus goes on to say in verse 23,

Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you beforehand. So, if they say to you, ‘Look, he is in the wilderness,’ do not go out. If they say, ‘Look, he is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it.

The proof is not in the signs and wonders, but in the faithfulness of the doctrine to that which Christ and his apostles have already revealed.

Not “If” But “When”

As John now reminds the Ephesian Christians, the presence of false teachers should not come as a surprise. Jesus warned his disciples about false teachers, and John is echoing that warning, only directing it against these proto-Gnostics in Ephesus. The spirit of antichrist is already in the world when John writes, and the spirit of antichrist remains in the world even now. In fact, it is not hard to identify those who do the work of antichrist. There is one question which gets to the root of the issue–what do these teachers confess about Jesus? Is he God in human flesh?

Despite the gravity of John’s warning, Christians need not fear false teachers or these antichrists. In verse 4, John reminds his readers, “Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” The word “antichrist” is so loaded in our day that we have a hard time hearing it in connection with heresy as John’s original audience did. Even then, the mention of foes who attempt to negate everything that the apostles have proclaimed about the Jesus whom they saw, heard, and touched, probably prompted a fair bit of fear in the congregations.

Yes, John is writing to warn his reader about the danger of false teaching, and he is certainly writing to give Christians a simple test to determine who is an antichrist. But he also writes to comfort those who might panic at the news that false teachers and false doctrine arising in the church is an inevitability. We need not be afraid of such people because they are easy to overcome. Truth is to a false teacher what kryptonite is to Superman.

John reminds his reader of one very important fact–“dear children, you are from God!” More than that, greater is he who indwells you (the Holy Spirit) than that spirit which is in the world (the spirit of antichrist). And since you have been born again, you know the truth. You have been indwelt by the Holy Spirit. This is why you have not been taken in by the false teachers. As John puts it, “you have overcome them.” The language here is that of spiritual combat and of a decisive victory.[1] Those who have held to the truth have not been taken in (deceived) by those who have attempted to lure them away from Christ through their false teaching and secret knowledge.

The implication is that God’s dear children and John’s beloved have heard the truth (the apostolic preaching of the gospel), they have believed in the Christ who is the content of that preaching, and they have been indwelt by the Holy Spirit. They know not to believe the lies coming those who have departed from the faith and who now claim to have gained insight into the secret teachings of Jesus. The Ephesian Christians have already decisively overcome the deceivers. They have done so by holding fast to the truth.

But John knows full well that in one sense the false teachers have a big edge–while they may misrepresent the apostle’s teaching about Jesus, since they speak the language of the world, John knows they’ll always gain a hearing. There will be plenty of itching ears who want to learn their “insights.” As John puts it in verse 5, “They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them.” Human nature, being what it is (sinful), there’s something in many of us that is attracted to the kinds of religious secrets and insights taught by these proto-Gnostics. We’ve already heard the gospel. We already know the commandments. We want to move on from that old stuff to the new teaching which tickles our ears. We want to know the hidden secrets of Christianity so that we can control our destinies and we can find people who will tell us what we want to hear.

But John tells us not to be like those who are “of the world,” and who listen to the spirit of antichrist, which is in the world already. “We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.” John’s standard is pretty basic. If we have believed the gospel, we are from God. If we are from God we listen for Christ’s voice in his word, not in the secrets which some claim to have grasped, and which they are all too happy to tell us. These proto-Gnostics are not interested in the word of the gospel which gives us life. That’s old news to them. Their lack of interest in the gospel and their denial that Jesus is the eternal son of God manifest in the flesh is the sure sign to us that someone is not from God. If people don’t love the truth, they’ll flock to error like a moth to a flame. And that is how we are to discern truth from error.

The Take Away

As we see throughout John’s first letter, John’s focus falls upon the truth of the gospel which had already been preached to the churches and which is the standard by which we are to judge everything we hear from those who preach and who teach. Never forget that the Christian faith is a truth claim, grounded in the person and work of Christ. And because it is a truth claim grounded in history, Christianity is not grounded in my experience, my preferences, my upbringing, or my culture. John directs us to the message of what Jesus did as the word manifest in the flesh as the weapon to oppose the spirit of antichrist. The proof is in the doctrine–does what someone teaches and confesses about Christ comport with the Scriptures, the revelation given us by Jesus and his apostles? And this doctrine does not change, nor does it need to be supplemented by additional revelation.

In fact, the importance and centrality of our confession about Jesus is why, historically, Christian worship has included the recitation of the Apostle’s or Nicene Creed (both of which summarize the Bible’s teaching about the basics of our faith). Reciting the creed is the equivalent of a Jew reciting the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4). When we recite these creeds, we are confessing the very thing John sets forth as the key test for truth. Who is Jesus and what did he come to do? When we recite the creeds, we are waging war on the spirit of antichrist. So, next time we recite the creed, remember that you are not only confessing Christ as God manifest in the flesh, you are opposing the spirit of antichrist.

I’ve made this point before, but since John makes it again, so will I. You cannot overcome error if you don’t know the truth. John is warning us that heretics will come–it is not a matter of “if” but when. And if you don’t know the truth, you (and your families) are defenseless in the face of false teaching. John reminds his readers to go back to the truth they had heard from the beginning, and then measure everything they heard against that teaching.

The application for us is to know our Bibles and to make full use of our catechism. If you are not in the word, and studying the catechism, the degree to which you neglect to do this is the degree to which you will be defenseless against that foe who is sure to come. Remember, heretics never come and announce “I’m a heretic.” They always use some measure of truth to smuggle in their error. You don’t circulate $3.00 bills with purple ink and Mickey Mouse’s face and expect people to fall for your ruse. The counterfeit has to look like the original. But if you don’t know the original, you’ll fall victim to the counterfeit. There is another Christ, another gospel, and another spirit. And if you know the truth and put these claims to the test, John says you’ll decisively defeat the false teachers.

Since the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth, he always will point us to that Savior who brought us from death to life, who turned aside God’s wrath, and who even now intercedes for us before the Father. The Spirit of truth will always direct us to that Christ who is the word manifest in the flesh. The Spirit of truth will never lead us away from the true Jesus to a Jesus who is but a mere ghost. The Spirit of truth will never reveal to someone secrets not already revealed in God’s word. The test for truth is the doctrine. This is how we tell truth from error.

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[1] Smalley, 1, 2, 3 John, 226.

Having set forth the orthodox teaching, the Synod rejects the errors of those

Who teach that those who truly believe and have been born again not only can forfeit justifying faith as well as grace and salvation totally and to the end, but also in actual fact do often forfeit them and are lost forever.

For this opinion nullifies the very grace of justification and regeneration as well as the continual preservation by Christ, contrary to the plain words of the apostle Paul: “If Christ died for us while we were still sinners, we will therefore much more be saved from God’s wrath through him, since we have now been justified by his blood” (Rom. 5:8–9); and contrary to the apostle John: “No one who is born of God is intent on sin, because God’s seed remains in him, nor can he sin, because he has been born of God” (1 John 3:9); also contrary to the words of Jesus Christ: “I give eternal life to my sheep, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand” (John 10:28–29).

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The issue here is, “Can someone who genuinely comes to faith in Christ and is declared righteous (justified) then cease to believe and lose their righteous standing?” The Arminian assumption is “yes.” Those who are truly regenerate and, at a point in time, do possess true faith and are justified can subsequently cease to believe and lose both regeneration and justification. To put it another way, according to Arminianism/semi-Pelagianism, if regeneration results from a human action (faith and repentance), then it is possible to cease believing and lose both regeneration and justification. If salvation is grounded in human freedom, not the grace and mercy of God, then perseverance depends upon human willing as well.

As the 3rd Rejection makes clear, the Arminian error is in direct conflict with Christ’s ongoing priestly, kingly, and prophetic work on behalf of those chosen by the Father, granted the new birth by the Holy Spirit, and who then come to faith. As we have seen, Jesus presently intercedes on behalf of the elect, praying for them and ensuring that they do indeed persevere to the end—as definitively stated in John 10:28–29. Can Jesus’s prayers on behalf of the elect go unanswered? Of course not. The justified persevere because Christ preserves them.

It is important to distinguish the error rejected here from apostasy—someone who falls away from their profession of faith. The Arminian error assumes that a passage like Hebrews 6:4–6 refers to a genuine Christian who loses their salvation when, in fact, the passage actually refers to someone who never possessed salvation.

The apostate of Hebrews 6 is a professing Christian—and, in the context of that epistle, was likely a Jew who renounced their Christian profession to return to Judaism. Such a person possessed what is known as historical or temporary faith. There are indeed people in our churches who profess faith in Christ, who are baptized, and who, for a time, demonstrate Christian affections and manifest good works. But such people do not persevere in faith to the end. This is how they reveal that they are not—and never were—numbered among the elect: they fall away. They have never truly trusted in Christ and are not beneficiaries of his ongoing intercessory work. Such people can and do commit apostasy.

The New Testament warns us about such people in 1 John 2:19: “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.”

Episode Synopsis:

Gentiles had a difficult time understanding why Jews would circumcise their male children. There was no Gentile heritage or memory of Abraham. Further complicating the situation was the fact that, among Jews in Rome—as with Jews across the Greco-Roman world—circumcision was understood to be a meritorious act. Those who were circumcised were numbered among the people of God, and those who were not were not. Imagine the difficulty of converting from Gentile paganism to Judaism and then having to undergo a very painful surgery in a very delicate place. Proselytes not only needed to embrace monotheism, embrace Jewish feasts and ceremonial washings, follow the dietary laws, and obey the Decalogue (the Ten Commandments), but also undergo circumcision as adults.

But just as Paul challenged the Galatian Judaizers—the covenant God made with Moses at Mount Sinai was not to be confused with the gracious covenant God made with Abraham—so too the true meaning of circumcision was not found in the cutting of flesh. The cutting of flesh was an outward sign of the cutting of the heart—a way to speak of faith in Jesus Christ. In Romans 2:17–29, Paul is not only correcting the Jewish misunderstanding of circumcision—a serious error in its own right—but also letting Jewish Christians know that uncircumcised Gentiles could be numbered among the people of God and become true children of Abraham without undergoing circumcision.

Paul’s discussion of circumcision (verses 25–29) flows out of his efforts to take the Jews to task for their hypocrisy in verses 17–24. The Jews demand certain behavior of others—stop stealing, stop committing adultery, stop robbing temples. But many Jews were doing the same things themselves. The Jews are supposed to instruct those who live in ignorance and walk in darkness—the Gentiles. They were to show them that truth is found in the law of Moses, the very embodiment of God’s will. But instead of leading and teaching the blind and foolish Gentiles, the Jews commit the very same sins themselves. Imagine the blatant hypocrisy of insisting upon something permanent like circumcision, all the while committing the same sins that you insist the person about to submit to the procedure is supposed to stop doing.

This leads to one of the most tragic lines in the whole of the New Testament (verse 24): “For, as it is written, `The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.’”

Show Notes:

It was a routine session, thankfully. No crows, helicopters, drones, airplanes (Fullerton or LAX), neighbor’s air conditioning, etc., etc. Makes editing much easier.

I’m getting good feedback on the shorter episodes (around 40 minutes).

Recommended Resources:

Select Resources for the Study of Romans

R. S. Clark on circumcison as a sign of regeneration

Batzig on circumcision as a sign of the covenant

Batzig on the circmcision of Christ

Music:

(Shutterstock): Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op 92m, second movement, Allegret

As mentioned in the previous installments, Warfield’s extensive “Review” of four of Evelyn Underhill’s books was published in the 1914 Princeton Theological Review, (105–123). Underhill’s works were gaining popularity at the time, the reason for Warfield’s detailed and critical response. Many of her books remain in print today, and she still has a following despite her death over eighty years ago (1941). Her “Christianized” form of mysticism (actually pantheism) still finds an audience among those who identify as “spiritual but not religious,” a phenomenon currently being addressed by Michael Horton’s three volume series on the subject.

In Part One, I took up Warfield’s less than favorable review of Evelyn Underhill’s works championing a so-called “Christian” mysticism—a subjective religious impulse grounded in ecstatic experience and not based upon the written word of God. In Part Two, Warfield addresses her notion of God as the “Absolute,” which, as we noted, has much in common with the inscription on the infamous Athenian altar dedicated to an “unknown god,” mentioned by Paul in Acts 17:23. A better term for the “religiosity of the human spirit,” might just be “the flesh,” as identified by Paul in Romans 8:5-8.

In Part Three, The Lion of Princeton presses her on matters of definition—a problem often associated with mystical religious experience, because such experience is difficult to put into explanatory words. But Christianity is essentially a religion of objective truth (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:1-8; 2 Corinthians 5:19) revealed in revelatory speech and acts, not in subjective experience. As noted, the heart should follow the mind, not skip over it into a mystical and subjective abyss divorced from those historical events upon which Christianity is based.

Warfield’s in-depth review of Underhill’s work is important for us to consider because mysticism always seems to resurface in times of religious confusion because its gives people a way to unite through shared mystical experience without any doctrinal commitments—“the heart rules over the head.” Such religious experience exists apart from creeds, objective truth claims, and redemptive history, which provides the foundation for a proper Christian faith, which looks to a very real incarnation, a life lived in perfect obedience to the law of Moses, the shedding of RH-typable blood and an empty tomb. Many of today’s “spiritual but not religious” folk have read or would enjoy the Underhill’s writings.

We pick up where we left off last time. Warfield points out that Underhill mistakes the writings of Plotius and her own pantheizing tendencies with that of “abounding culture,” which, she contends, creates a society which fosters those like her who seek God through direct experience. Warfield corrects her misguided assumption.

Miss Underhill would have us believe that Mysticism appears always in the train of great periods of abounding culture; it is the consummate flower of human culture. We think it truer to say that it appears always in the train of periods of the dominance of a Pantheizing philosophy: it is the effect in the religious mind of prevalent Pantheizing thought. . . . Miss Underhill allows (though this is far from all that she allows) that the Mystics at least speak the language of Plotinus. So true is this, that even she, though set upon cleansing the idea of Mysticism from the smudge of Pantheism, yet herself speaks the language of Plotinus, if indeed she stops with that. Though she may on occasion therefore insist that in his achieved “union with the Absolute,” the Mystic does not lose his identity in God, but “in the Mystic this union is conscious, personal thought”; and even indeed that what the Mystic “calls ‘Union with God’ is only his utter identification with the interests of the spiritual life”—she naturally cannot maintain this point of view, and everywhere lapses into language with quite other implications. . . . [I]t is of the very essence of Mysticism to maintain the immediate presence of the divine in man, needing only to be recognized and felt; and it is therefore that it is by the way of “contemplation” that the Mystic bids us seek and find God. Miss Underhill herself tells us that “the whole claim of the Mystics ultimately depends on man’s possession of pure being in ‘the spark of the soul’” “pure being” being but a synonym for the Absolute.

Notice, for Underhill, there is no mediated encounter with the Holy God. She seeks something quite apart from the intercessory work of Jesus Christ and the indwelling Holy Spirit as described in Romans 8:14-17. According to Underhill, we can encounter the immediate presence of the Absolute, who is “pure being.” Recall that Isaiah had an encounter with the Lord (Isaiah 6:1-13), so did Paul (Acts 9:1-16), as did John (Revelation 4-6). But these were certainly not the sort of experiences sought and endorsed by Miss Underhill. Isaiah, Paul, and John were immediately aware of their own sin and unworthiness and were filled with dread and terror. Union with the God of the Bible requires mediation, lest we be consumed, “for our God is a consuming fire,” (Hebrews 12:29).

Although you would think things could not get worse—they do, and quickly in fact. The mystic consciousness soon leads one to become aware of one’s own deity apart from which, no union is possible.

That in this “ineffable experience” called “the act of union,” something more is achieved than merely the identification of ourselves “with the interests of the spiritual life”—something very much like the identification of ourselves with God—emerges from such statements as the following: “All pleasurable and exalted states of Mystic consciousness in which the sense of I-hood persists, in which there is a loving and joyous relation between the Absolute as object and the self as subject, fall under the head of Illumination.” “The real distinction between the Illuminative and the Unitive life is that in Illumination the individuality of the subject—however profound his spiritual consciousness, however close his communion with the Infinite—remains separate and intact.”

As Warfield explains, the “I-hood” may remain,”separate and intact.” But in the following, it becomes clear that this expected “close communion with the Absolute,” leads to the following result—a transmutation, a veritable “deification” of the self. This may be the high point for the mystic, but is the low point of biblical expectation. In fact, seeking such requires repentance.

That the achievement of this union with the Absolute should be represented by some Mystics at least as “deification” can occasion no surprise. These Mystics certainly do not bate their breath when they speak of it: Miss Underhill herself calls their language with respect to it “blunt and positive.” “If we are to allow,” she writes, however, “that the Mystics have ever attained the object of their quest, I think we must also allow that such attainment involves the transmutation of the self to that state which they call, for want of exact language, ‘deified.’ The necessity of such transmutation is an implicit of their first position: the law that ‘we behold that which we are, and are that which we behold.’ Eckhart, in whom the language of deification assumes its most extreme form, justifies it upon this necessity. ‘If,’ he says, ‘I am to know God directly, I must become completely He and He I: so that this He and this I become and are one I.’”

John Lenon’s famous line from the Walrus comes to mind—“I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together,” summing up Underhill’s theology quite well. Had Warfield lived into the age of the Beatles, my guess is that he would have cited this line in response. Experience of the Absolute, leads to union with the Absolute. This is nothing less than self-deification. The mystic thinks this a goal—the orthodox Christian sees it as blasphemy. There is a load echo here from Genesis 3:5, the challenge to Eve offered by the serpent. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Eve embraced it, so has Underhill.

As Warfield explains, this is where a pantheistic mysticism ultimately takes us.

“The achievement of reality, and deification,” says Miss Underhill, “are then one and the same thing: necessarily so, since we know that only the divine is the real.” Accordingly “the Mystic Way” begins “by the awakening within the self of a new and embryonic consciousness; a consciousness of divine reality, as opposed to the illusory sense-world in which she was immersed.” There is nothing more fundamental to the whole Mystical consciousness than the conviction that what we shall see when we retreat into the “cell of self-knowledge” is just that Reality which stands to it for God.

A retreat into the “cell of self-knowledge” is in reality a sort of prison from the real world in which we live. Paul describes this as a darkened understanding (Ephesians 4:18-19). God can become whatever we think or want him to be—which make us his equal if not his superior.

Warfield is quick to point out that the mystic beats a quick retreat from the deifying logic of their position, but the mystic cannot truly escape the trap of their own making.

It is easy to point out that these same Mystics nevertheless protest that by this transmutation the creature does not really become God; and that others prefer the figure of marriage with God to that of deification to express the “mystic union” which they seek in common. But this is only to say that they are Christians as well as Mystics, and that their Christianity modifies their Mysticism: it does not throw doubt upon but rather establishes the fact that the truly—unmodified—Mystical doctrine involves the identification of the creature with the deity. And that for a much deeper reason than the merely epistemological one pointed out by Miss Underhill in the passage just quoted from her).

Nevertheless, the mystic sees themselves as a chip off the divine block.

“What constitutes the main distinction between mysticism and other piety is that the ordinary pious man has above everything an eye for that which distinguishes him from God: for his insignificance in contrast with God’s greatness, for his finiteness in contrast with God’s infinity and eternity, for his sinfulness in contrast with God’s holiness. In their feeling of this distinction men remain clearly conscious of their humanity and look upon their God as something peculiar, different from themselves. Of this distinguishableness of God, however, the Mystic will know nothing. God is to him indistinguishable as He is incomprehensible, invisible and infinite and therefore all-embracing. No one is in a position to draw a sharp line between humanity and deity; and therefore this line is capable of being crossed and man accordingly can attain this union.” Behind this somewhat negative attitude there lies the positive conviction of the Mystic that there exists in himself a native spark of “pure Being” which is in and of itself divine, and that it is his part to blow this spark into a flame that he may become truly himself in the consciousness that he is really God.

The mystic path leads to an “awakening and embryonic consciousness,” away from a “reality” completely independent of the sensuous world into which God has placed us. The mystic prefers darkness to light where they can find a deity of their own imagining—a deity which looks back at them in the mirror.

“The achievement of reality, and deification,” says Miss Underhill, “are then one and the same thing: necessarily so, since we know that only the divine is the real.” Accordingly “the Mystic Way” begins “by the awakening within the self of a new and embryonic consciousness; a consciousness of divine reality, as opposed to the illusory sense-world in which she was immersed”. There is nothing more fundamental to the whole Mystical consciousness than the conviction that what we shall see when we retreat into the “cell of self-knowledge” is just that Reality which stands to it for God.

To be continued . . .

In his book, the Certainty of Faith (1901), Herman Bavinck writes

. . . there is also a practical side to theology that makes it akin to medicine. The theoretical knowledge of the doctor is doubtlessly very important, but his worth and the worth of his science only comes into its own when he heals people. Similarly, theology must prescribe medicine for the ailments of the soul. It must be able to say how and in what way we can be freed from our guilt, reconciled with God, attain to patience and hope amidst life’s tribulations, and find reason to sing praises in the face of death.

A theology that does not concern itself with these things and only dedicates itself to critical and historical studies is not worthy of the name theology. And a theologian who is acquainted with all the latest issues of his science but who stands speechless at a sickbed and knows no answer to the questions of the lost sinner’s heart isn't worthy of his title and office.

A theology professor once told me that in his student days he was introduced to all sorts of scientific issues, but was never given the answer to one question: How do I get to heaven? Yet, the answer to this question provides the church and theology with their reason for existence. This is what preaching and family visiting are about.

Modern theology, whose achievements we must not underestimate, did not flounder because of the scientific acumen of its enemies. Its impotence became evident in practice. It lost in the pulpit and in family visiting because it had no comfort to offer for either life or death. Not the school but the church, not the seminary but the pulpit, not apologetics but the sickbed and deathbed showed up its poverty.

History and experience show us every day what is most expected from theology: it must nurture our certainty of faith. Otherwise, rather than seek help from an established science that can wax eloquent about illness but which cannot heal, the sick will turn to the first quack who comes along.

An excerpt from “Not Ashamed of the Gospel” Season Five/Episode Five (Romans 1:16-17)

What, then, should we take with us from Romans 1:16-17?

The first thing we need to say is that, like Paul, we must never be ashamed of the gospel. Yes, the cross is a scandalous message. Yes, the cross is foolishness to the Greeks. Unfortunately, in much of American religion (and even in much of evangelicalism), the gospel has become a message about how the holy God makes himself acceptable to self-righteous sinners. While preachers, teachers, and evangelists have every right to be cognizant of the culture and communicate the gospel accordingly, we are never given the right to change the message of the cross to appease that culture.

The power of God is revealed whenever the gospel is preached, not when ministers seek to entertain, strive to be politically relevant, or speak to the whims of the congregation. Until Christ’s church recovers its confidence in the preaching of the cross, we will never see a healthy church, nor witness genuine reformation. Let us sincerely desire and eagerly pray that we may follow Paul’s example and that we, as individual believers and as church members, may never be ashamed of the gospel. For the gospel is the power of God for the salvation of all who believe. The preaching of the gospel is the means by which God saves sinners! "The righteous shall live by faith." But how can people come to faith when there is no gospel? As P.T. Forsyth once put it, "We must preach to our age, but woe to us if it is our age which we preach, and only hold up the mirror to the time."

A final point of application is that we need to be very clear about the nature of Paul’s gospel. The words and phrases, and even the prepositions used here, really do matter! When the gospel—the message that Jesus died for our sins and that he was raised for our justification—is preached, God freely bestows a right standing upon all those who renounce their own righteousness and receive what God freely offers to them through faith in Jesus Christ, namely the perfect righteousness of Christ himself. In the gospel, a righteousness from God is revealed to all who believe, whether they be Jew or Gentile!

When this gospel is preached, God demonstrates his power to give life, to create faith, and to deliver all those who trust in Jesus Christ from the wrath to come. In this gospel, a righteousness from God is revealed—a righteousness without which none of us will see heaven. But if we believe God’s promise to save us from the guilt of our sin, God regards us as though we had never sinned and as though we had kept his commandments perfectly. Indeed, "the righteous shall live by faith," and that faith is created through the gospel in which the righteousness of God is revealed.

A familiar message? Yes, but one we need to hear over and over again.